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SECTION III 

THE ENGLISH DRAMA 

FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT DAY 



GENERAL EDITOR 

GEORGE PIERCE BAKER, A.B. 

PROFESSOR OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE 
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




inaJviorato 

This figure from the engraved title page of Robert Burton's Anatomi of 
Mehmcholy shows the image in the mind of the writer of these lines about 
John Ford: 

" Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got 
With folded amies and melancholy hat," 



'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE 

AND 

THE BROKEN HEART 

By JOHN FORD 



EDITED BY 

S^'Pi-' SHERMAN, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE 
"university of ILLINOIS 



BOSTON, U. S. A., AND LONDON 
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 



\fi\ 






COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. C. HEATH & COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



ID5 



MAY "7 1915 Tl 

?)CI.A401058 



^Bfosmpi^l? 



John Ford was baptized at Ilsington in Devonshire on April 1 7, 
1586. He came of a respectable family which had long lived in this 
neighborhood. His father, Thomas Ford, it appears from Rymer's 
Foedera (cited by GifFord) was in the commission of the peace. His 
mother was the sister of Lord-chief-justice Popham. " They in this 
county," says Fuller {Worthte%^ vol. i, p. 413, 1840), "seem 
innated with a genius to study law . . . Devonshire makes a feast 
of such who by the practice thereof have raised great estates." 
Ford's relationship to Popham, a man of weight and influence in 
the reigns of both Elizabeth and James I, may be presumed to 
have affected his choice of a career. For though it is probable that 
he matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in March of 1601," we 
find him entered in November, 1602, at the Middle Temple, of 
which Popham was a member and for some time treasurer. Ford's 
London life, even after he became a well-recognized dramatist, re- 
mained closely associated with the Inns-of-Court. In Gray's Inn he 
had a cousin John Ford, to whom he was deeply attached, and who 
doubtless opened the way to a pleasant fellowship with the mem- 
bers of his own house. In 1629 Ford dedicated his Lo-ver^s Mel- 
ancholy "To my worthily respected friends, Nathaniel Finch, John 
Ford Esquires j Master Henry Blunt, Master Robert Ellice, and all 
the rest of the noble society of Gray's Inn." In 1633 he dedicated 
ho've s Sacrifice *' To my truest friend, my worthiest kinsman, John 
Ford, of Gray's Inn, Esq. " Commendatory verses for this play were 
written by James Shirley, who in 1 625 had taken up his residence 
at Gray's Inn. 

In these days there was a powerful literary leaven in the Inns-of- 
Court. It is necessary only to mention the names of Bacon, Mid- 
dleton, Beaumont, Sir John Davies, John Marston in order to sug- 
gest some of the forces that tended to divert young men from the 

' A John Ford was entered under that date: see Dictionary of 
National Biography^ article on Ford the dramatist. 



vi llBiograpl^^ 

severity of their legal studies — the father of Marston, who lamented 
his son's seduction by the stage, had vainly bequeathed to his heir 
his law books in the Middle Temple. The young barrister who 
passed from the study of jurisprudence to the study and profession of 
letters was supported by many distinguished precedents. Yet for 
nearly a score of years after his admission to the Temple, Ford seems 
merely to have dallied with literary composition. So late as 1629 in 
the prologue to the Lover'' s Melancholy he assumes an air of patrician 
superiority to those who make "the noble use of poetry a trade." 
Till after 1620 his work may well have been, as he is so fond of 
asserting that it was, the fruit of his leisure. His first literary venture, 

-" Earners Memorial, 1606, is a long elegiac poem on the death of the 
Earl of Devonshire — a barely tolerable performance inspired by 
youthful enthusiasm and a desire to make himself known as a poet in 
polite society. Later in 1 606 the visit of the King of Denmark in Eng- 
land gave occasion tor his Honour Triumphant or the Peers^ Challenge, 
a romantic treatise in prose and verse, to which was added The Mon- 
archs" Meeting, containing three poetical pieces in honor of the 
Danish sovereign. This pamphlet, like Fame^s Memorial, was de- 
signed to commend its author to the attention of aristocratic circles. 
His next production is a lost and unpublished comedy, yf« III Be- 
ginning has a Goo J End, acted at the Cockpit in 16x3. &> Thomas 
O'verburf s Ghost, entered in the Stationers^ Register on the 25th 
of November, 161 5, is also merely a name. The last performance 
of this period is A Line of Life, a moral treatise in prose, published 
in 1620. The moral edification of the work is insignificant; but the 
style shows some interesting traces of Bacon's influence, and there 
are some suggestive sketches of contemporaries. 

After this long period of occasional, miscellaneous, and desultory 

> writing, Ford entered upon a short period of industrious collaboration 
with Dekker, Rowley, Webster and perhaps others. It is a rather 
striking coincidence that in the year 1 6 1 3, when Ford's first comedy 
(the lost An III Beginning has a Good End) was acted, Dekker was 
thrown into prison and was silent for seven years, and that Ford ap- 
parently made no further dramatic attempt till Dekker joined with 
him and Rowley in the composition of The Witch of Edmonton. 
This tragi-comedy was not published till 1658 ; but the execution 
of the witch referred to in the title took place in 1621; and it is 



generally agreed that the play was written to take immediate advan- 
tage of the interest aroused by the trial. In March, 1623-24, a moral 
masque, The Sun^ s Darlings was licensed for production at the Cock- 
pit j in 1636 it was printed with the names of Ford and Dekker on 
the title-page. In 1624 two other plays, The Fairy Knight and The 
Bristoive Merchant, were, according to Sir Henry Herbert's Diary^ 
produced by the joint authorship of Ford and Dekker ; but these 
are lost. In September of the same year a tragedy by Ford and Web- 
ster, A Late Murther of the Son upon the Mother, was licensed for 
the stage, but was not published, and is now lost. Further evidence 
of friendly relations between Ford and Webster is to be found in the 
commendatory verses by the former printed in the Duchess of Malfi, 
1623 

The production of The Lo'ver^s Melancholy, November 24, 
1628 (published 1629), marks the beginning of Ford's independent ^ 
and significant dramatic period. In the dedicatory epistle he declares 
that this is the first dramatic piece of his "that ever courted reader," 
and he intimates that very likely he will not rush into print again. 
After a decent interval, however, he put forth in 1633 three trage- 
dies, ^ Tis Pity She^s a Whore, The Broken Heart, and Lo've'' s Sac- 
rifice. In 1634 ^^ published his one historical play, The Chronicle 
History of Per kin War beck. The Fancies Chaste and Noble appeared in 
1638, and in the following year The Lady's Trial, the last drama to 
be published during the author's life-time. A tragedy. Beauty in a 
Trance, was entered in the Stationers' Register, September 9, 1653, 
and two comedies, beside An III Beginning has a Good End, were 
entered in June, 1660, namely The London Merchant and The Royal 
Combat; all these were sacrificed by Warburton's cook. It remains 
only to add The ^een or the Excellency of her Sex, a tragi-comedy 
published in 1653 by Alexander Goughe, and attributed by Professor 
Bang in his reprint of 1906 to John Ford. 

Of Ford's later days we know nothing^ after 1 639 he vanishes. 
Giftord says there was "an indistinct tradition among his neighbours 
that he married and had children." From various dedicatory epistles 
and complimentary verses we conclude that he lived on excellent 
terms with several gentlemen of the legal profession and several well- 
known playwrights — among the latter, Webster, Dekker, Shirley, 
Massinger, and Brome. He contributed verses prefixed to Barnabe 



viii Biograpl)^ 

Barnes's Four Books of Offices, 1 606; to several editions of Sir Thomas 
Overbury's fVife ^ and a highly laudatory poem on Ben Jonson to 
Jonsonus VirhiuSy 1638. Our knowledge of his character is mainly 
inferential, though his persistent emphasis upon his independence 
of the literary profession reveals clearly enough one of his points of 
pride. Aline in Heywood's Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels^ 1635, 

And hee's now but yocke Foord, that once was John 

perhaps indicates a certain loss of personal dignity which Ford suf- 
fered from his association with members of the dramatic profession. A 
couplet in 'Die Time Poets (Choyce Drollery, 1656) throws some 
light upon his temperament : 

Deep in a dump jfohn Ford alone was got 
With folded amies and melanchoUy hat. 

From first to last Ford wrote to please selected judgments, and, 
though several of his plays seem to have met with tolerable approval, 
there is little evidence that he ever enjoyed wide reputation. Aside 
from the tributes of fellow dramatists, the most interesting contem- 
porary mention that he received is the epigram of Richard Crashaw: 

Thou cheat'st us, Ford; mak'st one seem two by art: 
What is Love's Sacrifice but The Broken Heart .? 

Under the date March 3, 1668-69, Pepys writes in his Diary: 
*' To the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw an old play, the 
first time acted these forty years, called * The Lady's Tryali,* acted 
only by the young people of the house ; but the house very full." 
In 1 7 14 Per kin Pf^arheck was reprinted to take advantage of the 
excitement caused by the Jacobite insurrection in Scotland, and in 
1745 it was acted on similar occasion. In 1748 Macklin revived 
the Lever's Ale/anc/io/y in Drury-Lane for the benefit of his wife. 
' Tis Pity She's a fVhore was included in Dodsley's Select Collection 
-of Old Plays, 1744. The beginning of Ford's modern and substan- 
tial recognition, however, is marked by Lamb's panegyric on The 
> Broken Heart in his Specimens from the Dramatic Potts, 1808, 



3Inttot)«ctfon 

When John Ford was a young man of twenty read- 
ing law at the inns-of-court he committed two trifling 
literary indiscretions called Fame^s Memorial z.nA Honour 
Triumphant. These little tracts, both published in 1606, 
are of slight intrinsic interest, and they have passed hitherto 
with insignificant comment. At first sight, indeed, there 
seems to be no important connection between them and 
their author's dramatic work which began to appear in 
print more than a score of years later. As a matter of 
fact, however, they yield to closer scrutiny extremely 
suggestive hints on the source of Ford's ideas and cul- 
ture, on the native bias of his character, and on his pe- 
culiar conception of tragedy. 

The immediate occasion of the first of these publica- 
tions was the death, April 3, 1606, of the accomplished 
and valiant Lord Montjoy, Earl of Devonshire. Suc- 
cessor in Ireland to the ill-fated Essex, he had in the 
last years of Elizabeth's reign gained military and ad- 
ministrative glory. On December 26, 1605, he married 
Lady Rich, then divorced from her husband, and, as 
Gifford says, **by this one step, which, according to 
our notions and probably to his own, was calculated to 
repair in some measure the injury which the lady's 
character had sustained, ruined both her and himself. 
. . . While the Earl maintained an adulterous com- 
merce with the lady all went smoothly; but the instant 



X 31ntroDuctton 

he married her, he lost the protection of the court and 
the estimation of the public. * The King,' says San- 
derson, * was so much displeased thereat as it broke the 
Earl's heart; for his Majesty told him that he had pur- 
chased a fair woman with a black soul.' " 

The situation evidently interested Ford greatly. As 
we shall have occasion to note elsewhere, he was al- 
ways on the side of lovers. Love seemed to him first 
and last the supreme reality of life. In 1606 he was 
himself, according to Fame* 5 Memorial^ hopelessly in 
love, and so perhaps predisposed to sympathy. There 
was, moreover, much in the Devonshire case to enlist 
his interest. The Lady Rich had never loved Lord 
Rich, and had been married to him against her will. 
Between her and Devonshire, on the other hand, was 
the bond of a long and faithful affection. Rich was 
mean, brutal, and jealous. Devonshire was one of the 
first gentlemen of the time. Lady Rich under the name 
of ** Stella " had been the muse of courtly poets from 
the days of Sidney. Ford enters the field with Fame* s 
Memorial not merely to celebrate the character of the 
dead nobleman, but also to plead the rights of love 
against public opinion. His appeal is to the select few : 
non omnibus studeo, non malevolis. He refers to the 
Earl's alliance thus: <*Link'd in the graceful bonds of 
dearest life, | Unjustly term'd disgraceful, he enjoy'd | 
Content's abundance." He characterizes the lady whom 
James had called a «* fair woman with a black soul " 
as **that glorious star | Which beautified the value of 
our land, | The lights of whose perfections brighter are 
I Than all the lamps which in the lustre stand | Of 



31ntroUuction xi 

Heaven's forehead." He commends her for braving 
popular censure: ** A beauty fairly-wise, wisely-dis- 
creet I In winking mildly at the tongue of rumour." 
Finally he reveals ihe intensely romantic ground on 
which he stands by a veiled reference to this affair in 
Honour Triumphant : **They principally deserve love 
who can moderate their private affections, and level the 
scope of desert to the executing their ladies command, 
and adorn their names by martial feats of arms: . . . 
Yea, what better example than of late in our own ter- 
ritory? that noble, untimely-cropt spirit of honour, our 
English Hector [Devonshire] , who cared not to un- 
dergo any gust of spleen and censure for his never- 
sufficiendy admired Opia, a perfect Penelope [Penelope 
was the lady's given name] to her ancient knight 
Ulysses." 

The circumstances which led to the composition of 
Honour Triumphant are worthy of a brief notice. In 
the summer of 1 606 the King of Denmark paid a visit 
to the English court. In honour of the occasion there 
were endless banquets, parades, pageants, plays, and 
royal joustings. Among the martial pastimes one inter- 
esting revival from bygone days of chivalry demands 
our attention, namely, a ** Challenge of four Knights 
Errant of the Fortunate Islands, (Earls of Lenox, 
Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery,) to maintain 
four propositions relating to love and ladies, addressed 
to all honourable * Men at Arms, Knights Adventurers 
of Hereditary Note, that for most maintenable actions 
wield the sword or lance, in the quest of glory.' " This 
entry may be found in the Calendar of State Papers 



xii 3|ntroUuction 

Domestic, vol. xxii, June i, page 319. To the notice 
is added in brackets, ** By Wm. Drummond of Haw- 
thornden." It is not clear what is meant by this ascrip- 
tion. In 1 606 Drummond was making his first visit to 
London, and since his father was in attendance upon 
the King, would naturally have been in touch with the 
affairs of the court. In a letter dated at Greenwich, 
June I, 1606 (see Drummond's Works, Edinburgh, 
171 1, pp. 231—32), Drummond gives the full text 
of the challenge, and names the four defenders. His 
wording of the four propositions, slightly different from 
Ford's, is as follows: 

** I. That in service of ladies no knight hath free 
will. 

** 2. That it is beauty maintaineth the world in valor. 

"3. That no fair lady was ever false. 

**4. That none can be perfectly wise but lovers." 
Drummond adds : ** The king of Denmark is expected 
here daily, for whose entertainment, this challenge ap- 
peareth to be given forth ' ' ; this does not seem to indi- 
cate Dfummond's authorship. In a letter of June 28 
(Works as above, p. 233), Drummond records a hu- 
morous answer to the challenge with four counter 
propositions; but he remarks that **the answerers have 
not appeared.'* 

The affair made th,e king laugh, says the Scotch poet, 
but the young Templar Ford was struck by the happy 
thought that the pen is mightier than the sword. Ac- 
cordingly he brings forth his pamphlet Honour Trium- 
phant : or the Peeres' Challenge with this motto on the 
title-page: Tarn Mer curio, quam Marti — ** In honor 



3introJ3uction xiii 

of all faire ladies, and in defence of these foure positions 
following: i . Knights in ladies service have no free- 
will. 2. Beauty is the mainteiner of valour. 3. Faire 
lady was never false. 4. Perfect lovers are onely wise. 
Mainteined by Arguments." The four parts of the dis- 
course are addressed to the Lords Lennox, Arundel, 
Pembroke, and Montgomery in the order named. The 
dedicatory epistle is addressed to the Countess of Pem- 
broke and the Countess of Montgomery. There is also 
a saucy address "to every sundry-opinioned reader" 
which contains the assurance that Ford is writing to 
please the fair and noble, and is utterly indiiFerent to 
the judgment of all others. 

But what chiefly concerns us is the spirit and temper 
of the document itself. We should not expect much 
originality of thought in a youth of twenty, nor do we 
find it here. Honour Triumphant reveals a mind im- 
mersed in the chivalric romances and poetry of the 
Elizabethan reign,' and deeply impregnated with the 
Platonic ideas of love and beauty best represented in 
the hymns of Spenser but through the medium of Italian 
literature widely disseminated in English. The upshot 
of the argument is to identify the good with the beauti- 
ful and the service of a fair lady with the pursuit of 
virtue. **The chiefest creation of man," says Ford, 
** was — next his own soul — to do homage to the ex- 
cellent frame of beauty — a woman!" **To be cap- 
tived to beauty is to be free to virtue." To be excluded 
from the favour of beauty is a ** hell insufferable." All 
men of valour aim at honour ; but, he contends, <* the 
^ The influence of Lyly's Euphua is obvious. 



xiv 31ntroDuccion 

mark which honour directs his level to is to participate 
the delightful sweets of sweetest beauty." Beauty alone 
is a good in itself. ** For men to be honoured of ladies 
is the scope of ill 1 felicity." This position is supported 
by Aristotle who says : ** the temperature of the mind 
follows the temperature of the body." Hence it follows 
that if a lady is beautiful she must be good : ** as the 
outward shape is more singular, so the inward virtues 
must be more exquisite." To love a beautiful woman 
is the highest wisdom. Indeed, lovers are often superior 
to theologians in their knowledge of the divine; for 
theologians are occasionally distracted by human affairs ; 
but ** lovers have evermore the idea of beauty in their 
imaginations, and therefore hourly doadore their Maker's 
architecture." In conclusion : ** Would any be happy, 
courageous, singular, or provident ? let him be a lover. 
In that life consisteth all happiness, all courage, all glory, 
all wisdom," 

The ardor and earnestness of Ford's stvle suggest 
that the leading propositions ot this pamphlet were to 
him not merely a set of pretty paradoxes, but a religion. 
The worship of beauty, the fatality of love, the glorifi- 
cation of passion — these were the fruits of an aristo- 
cratic and highly captivating mode of free thought, inde- 
pendent alike of public opinion, common morals, laws, 
and religion, and at times even clashing sharplv with 
them. For it is clear that most startlingly unconventional 
conclusions may be logically derived from the fundamen- 
tal principles of the religion of beautv. To take a single 
instance, Spenser savs in his " H)mne in Honour of 
Beautie " that love is a celesti;il harmony of hearts 



3Introtmctiou xv 

** composed of starrcs concent," of hearts that kneyv 
each other before they descended from their ** heavenly 
bowres." 

Then wrong it were that any other twaine 
Should in love's gentle band combyned bee 
But those whom heaven did at first ordaine, 
And made out of one mould the more t'agree. 

Suppose, for the sake of illustration, a common Eliz- 
abethan marriage, such as that of Lord and Lady Rich, 
in which relatives dispose of the bride for reasons of 
fortune and family. Subsequently the man destined by 
heaven for Lady Rich appears. According to the relig- 
ion of beauty, it is right that they should be united ; 
but the corrupted currents of law, morality, and church 
religion do not allow it. 

Spenser's wish to withdraw this poem from circulation 
because of its dangerous implications — finding that young 
readers **do rather suckc out poyson to their strong 
passion, then hony to their honest delight"' — is a 
characteristic example of English ethical sense curbing 
the itsthetic impulse in the interest of conduct, in 
F.ngland this religion of beauty was then, as it has always 
been, an exotic ; ^ and graver heads in Ford's own time 
repudiated it in no mild terms, betraying their conviction 
that the glorification of amorous passion was a curse out 
of Italy, a weakness to be condoned in youth, a vice to 

* See his prefiitorv note to the edition of 1596. 

^ Cf. Camilla to Pliilautus : *' In Italy to ly ve in love is thought 
no fault, ft)r that there they are all given to lust, which maketh thee 
to conjecture that we in England recken love as ye chiefest vertue, 
which we abhorre as ye greatest vice." Kuphues, p. 373, London, 
1900. 



xvi 31ntrotmction 

be condemned in maturity. **The stage,** says Lord 
Bacon, **is more beholden to love than the life of man. 
For as to the stage love is ever a matter of comedies 
and now and then of tragedies, but in life it doth much 
mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. 
. . . Great spirits and great business do keep out this 
weak passion." ' Equally striking is the judgment on 
love by that little known but very interesting essayist 
Sir William Cornwallis : **It is a pretty soft thing this 
same Love . . . the badge of eighteene, and upward, 
not to be disallowed ; better spend thy tinle so then 
at Dice. I am content to call this Love, though I holde 
Love too worthy a Cement to joyne earth to earth.'* So 
far is Cornwallis from partaking in the pseudo-Pla- 
tonic ideas of Ford that he is unwilling to bestow the 
name of love at all on the ** affection" existing between 
the sexes, **for it gives opportunity to lust, which the 
purenessof Love will not endure.*' ^ As further evidence 
of a contemporary distrust of human nature and disgust 
at all irregular relations, take these sentences from an 
excellent ** Discourse of Laws " 3 which appeared in 
1620: "Laws are so absolutely necessary ... to 
m^ke such a distinction between lawful and exorbitant 
desires, as unhuvfull affections may not be colored with 
good appearances. . . . Whereas men be ntiturall'^ 
affected and possessed with a violent heat of desires and 
passions and fancies, laws restrain and draw them from 
those actions and thoughts that would precipitate to all 

" See his essay "Of Love." 

* Essayt's. By Sir William Cornewallys, London, 1606 : Essay 5. 

^ An essay in IJortt Subsecivie^ London, 1620. 



3|ntrotiuction xvii 

manner of hazards and ill, which natural inclination is 
prone enough to." Finally, Robert Burton after rang- 
ing widely through the vast literature of the subject de- 
fines romantic love as a disease, **The comeliness and 
beauty which proceeds from woman," he says, **caus- 
eth Heroic aly or Love-melancholy, is more eminent 
above the rest, and properly called Love. The part af- 
fected in men is the liver, and therefore called Hcroicaly 
because commonly Gallants, Noblemen, and the most 
generous spirits are possessed with it." ' Yet this hero- 
ical love, he declares, *' deserves much rather to be 
called burning lust than by such an honourable title." ' 
It is the special passion of an idle nobility : ** We may 
conclude, that if they be young, fortunate, rich, high- 
fed, and idle withal, it is almost impossible that they 
should live honest, not rage and precipitate themselves 
into those inconveniences of burning lust. "3 

Now it is a significant fict that one of the few bits 
of contemporary evidence bearing on Ford's character 
tends to show that he had the reputation of a romantic 
amorist. In Choyce Drollery ( 1656) there appear two 
lines with distinct implications: 

Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got 
With folded armes and melancholly hat.* 

Ellis seems to think that this means that he was of **shy 
and reserved temperament." Ward glosses thus: ** He 

* The Anatomy of Melancholy^ vol. in, p. 43, London, 1904. 

2 Ibid., p. 57. 

' Ihid., p. 69. 

•* Choyce Drollery. . . . Now first reprinted from the edition of 
1656. . . . Ed. by j. Woodfail Kbsworth, Boston, 1876: the refer- 
ence is in a poem On the I'ime- Poets, pp. 5-7. 



xviii 3|ntrotiuction 

is ridiculed for a tendency to self-seclusion and melan- 
choly." But the best commentary upon the couplet is 
furnished by one of the curious sections of the frontis- 
^ piece of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. It represents 
^ a tall, elegantly attired young gentleman standing with 
folded hands and wide hat pulled far down over his 
e;yes. Beside him are books and quill pen, at his feet 
music and a lute, and he is labeled ** Inamorato." He 
illustrates the section of the work called ** Love Melan- 
choly." The couplet, then, does not furnish us per- 
haps ** that vivid touch of portraiture " which Ellis 
sees in it, but it refers Ford by a conventional sign to a 
well recognized type. This interpretation is borne out 
by a passage in Cornwallis; love, he says, brings forth 
** songs full of passion, enough to procure crossed arms, 
and the Hat pulled down." ^ I dwell upon this point 
because it goes to prove, with the other evidence, that 
Ford portrayed the various passions of love in his 
dramas from an inside view, and not with the detach- 
ment of the sovereign dramatist nor the objectivity of 
a scholar or a physician, but with the brooding sym- 
pathy of a lover. 

It is especially necessary to insist upon this point, 
furthermore, because Ford, in spite of his fundamentally 
different point of view, shows a large obligation to Bur- 
ton. With the single exception of Perkin Warbecky he 
chooses for the theme of his plays some aspect of ro- 
mantic or **heroical" love, and he scrutinizes the 
mental and physical symptoms of the lovers with some- 
thing of medical interest. Like Burton, he seems to 
^ Essay 5. 



3|ntroDuction xix 

believe this heroical love the peculiar afFection of m&n 
and women living in luxurious idleness; for he excludes 
his characters from participation in field sports, war, 
adventure, and shuts them up where love is the only 
social resource — to quote Burton's own words, *Mn 
great houses, princes' courts, where they are idle in 
summo gradUf fare well, live at ease, and cannot tell 
otherwise how to spend their time." His characterful 
accordingly, being vacant of all other occupation, are I 
completely engrossed by a single passion of love, or of 
jealousy, or of revenge, or of grief, which becomes sole 
master of their fate, and ravishes them with extravagant 
joy, or secretly preys upon their spirits, or hurries them 
swiftly down to crime and death. 

In his first published play. The Lover'' s Melancholy 
( 1629), Ford acknowledges by a marginal note his in- 
debtedness to Burton for a passage distinguishing certain 
mental diseases from melancholy. It has also been 
pointed out that the interlude of madmen is derived 
^from the Anatomy, It should be made equally clear 
that the germinal idea of the whole play is due to Bur- 
ton. The Lover^s Melancholy is decidedly deficient in 
action, but such elements of plot as it possesses seem to 
have been suggested by Burton's procedure in the section 
of his work treating of love melancholy. Ford chooses 
for this scene a love-sick court, and in a medico-poetical 
fashion studies the causes, the symptoms and the cure 
of love. He even introduces as an active figure among 
the dramatis personae a physician who has evidently 
given his days and nights to the study of Burton. In 
this case the patients are all afiiicted with love-sorrow 



XX idntrotiuction 

caused by a separation from the objects of their affec- 
tions. Since their affections flow in permissible channels 
the cure is simple; it is necessary only to re-unite the 
sundered lovers. 

Closely related to The Lover'' s Melancholy by virtue 
of their common relation to the A?iatomy of Me/ancholy 
is the play called The Queen (1653), recently edited 
by Professor Bang and most plausibly attributed by him 
to the authorship of Ford. Here again, vi^ith something 
more of plot than in The Lover^ s Melancholy^ we find 
the same curious use of the Burtonian psychotherapeu- 
tics. Alphonso, the hero, is suffering from an unac- 
countable but intense antagonism to the entire female 
sex. The queen is suffering equally from a no less in- 
tense and unaccountable passion for Alphonso. Muretto, 
a benevolent villain who understands the nature of this 
heroical melancholy, deliberately goes about, like a mod- 
ern practitioner of the art of mental healing, to suggest 
to the mind of the hero thoughts favorable to the queen. 
By a strenuous course of psychological treatment he re- 
stores the woman-hater to a normal condition. Hero 
and heroine are manipulated by the master of the show 
in certain typical and exciting crises of love, jealousy, 
and remorse to illustrate the treatment of mental aber- 
ration. The formula is apparent: Alphonso is the pa- 
tient; Muretto is the physician; the queen is the cure. 

The Fancies Chaste and Noble (1638) is doubtless 
from the dramatic, the aesthetic, or the ethical point of 
view one of the worst plays in the world. It admits the 
reader to a disgustingly indecent situation, extracts from 
it the full measure of repulsiveness, and then in the fifth 



31ntroiJuctwn xxi 

act blandly assures us it was all an innocent hoax. The 
thing is bad beyond condemnation, but perhaps not 
beyond explanation. One may assume that it was a 
work of Ford's dotage. Or — and it is rather tempt- 
ing — one may assume that Ford had undertaken, like 
his master Burton, to display not only all the common 
aspects of love-melancholy,, but also its sinister and 
execrable idiosyncrasies, of which senile lasciviousness 
is one. 

The Ladf s Trial ( 1 639), the last of the plays with 
happy endings, may be considered a study of ground- 
less jealousy after marriage. The husband returning 
from a long journey becomes gravely suspicious of his 
entirely innocent wife. All the friends and acquaint- 
ances of the family rise vehemently in defense of the 
wife, and at length the jealous man's ill fancies are 
routed. The interest here lies in the delicate portrayal 
of the emotions of a finely fibred woman under stress 
of a terrible accusation, in the chivalrous feeling which 
her virtue excites in the breast of the least virtuous, and 
in the careful exposition of the various shades of feeling 
through which the husband passes before his confidence 
is restored. The play contains some of Ford's sweetest 
blank verse and some excellently subtle bits of charac- 
terization; but the substance of the story is altogether 
too slight to be stretched over a five-act drama. 

If Ford had written only The Lover^ s Melancholy, 
The ^een. The Fancies Chaste and Noble , and The 
Ladj* s Trial he would have established but small claims 
on the attention of posterity. Nor would Per kin War- 
beck have made him a reputation. Coming to the stage 



xxii 3]utroUuction 

after Shakespeare, Chapman, Jonson, Dekker, Hey- 
vvood, Middleton, Webster, Beaumont, and Fletcher, 
he had nothing to contribute to dramatic technique but 
much to learn. On the basis of the five plays so far 
considered one might almost be justified in rating him as 
an intermittently successful imitator. The Lover^ s Mel- 
i2?icbo/y is a pretty thing in the Arcadian mood, but im- 
measurably surpassed in its kind by predecessors. As for 
The Oueen. Beaumont and Fletcher had written a half 
dozen tragi-comedies of its type as good or far better. 
No one who had seen Volponc would have endured sit- 
ting through The Fancies.'^ The old playgoer might 
fairly have regarded The LtiJy^ s Trial as a tame, un- 
eventful, somewhat modernized version of The Wmter* s 
Tale. Per kin War beck is a carefully constructed, well 
written, and highly respectable specimen of the English 
historical plav. Produced at a date long after the vogue 
of the chronicle play had died away, it has attracted 
attention by its solitariness and has been highly praised. 
Placed beside Edward II, Richard 111, Henry IV or 
Henry V it looks distinctly anaMiiic. Our dramatist, on 
the strength of this evidence, seems to lack ideas.* He 
catches a glimpse of an interesting dramatic situation, 
but he lacks the imagination to follow out its evolution. 

* Many situations in the two plays are parallel, and the supposed 
character of Octavio has something in common with that of Volpone. 

* The amount of credit that Ford should receive for Tht Sun % 
Darling and The fVitch of Edmonton is still disputable and, like 
most problems in collaboration, probably always will be. Since space 
does not permit of any profitable discussion of them here, I prefer to 
pass them with a reference to F. F. Pierce's two articles on the 
collaboration of Dekker and Ford in Aiiglia^ xxxvi (1911). 



31ntroDuction xxiH 

He has a certain penetrating insight into the passionate 
moods of the spirit, but he lacks the power of inventing 
characteristic action for the display of those moods. Fre- 
quently he sets to work in a very mechanical fashion to 
contrive a story to fit his characters, and, being a feeble 
plotter, too often contents himself with presenting the 
persons of the main plot in a flimsy patchwork of scenes 
pieced out to the length of a play by an irrelevant and 
tedious sub-plot. By common consent it has been de- 
cided that wit and humour were omitted from his en- 
dowment, and that his comic characters are among the 
worst in the history of the English drama. 

Upon what, then, does Ford's reputation rest? In- 
dubitably upon his three tragedies, "7"/> Pity, The 
Brokc?i Hearty and Love* s Sacrifice, all published in 
1633. liikc many another man of distinct but strictly lim- 
ited genius. Ford had two or three original ideas in him, 
uttered them with power, and then in a vain effort to re- 
peat his success puttered on from bad to worse. The fact 
seems to be that his genius remained somewhat lethargic 
unless his heart was engaged. It is highly significant 
that in these three really noteworthy plays his theme is 
\ forbidden love. In each case he confronts what he re- 
gards as an essentially tragic problem; and his construct- 
ive power, his characterization, and his poetry rise to 
the occasion. Tn each case he approaches his material 
with certain romantic preconceptions which give to his 
treatment of illicit passion an impressive consistency. He 
appears to believe still, as in his youth, that love be- 
tween the sexes is of mystical and divine origin, that it 
is irresistible, and that it is the highest good, the end 



xxiv idntrotiuction 

and aim of being. This certainly is the creed of his 
tragic characters. They believe in it uncompromisingly; 
for it they are ready to die, reiterating their faith in the 
last disgrace and agony. In discussing the peculiar tragic 
effects which issue from this romantic creed I shall dis- 
regard the conjectural dates of the plays, and take them 
up in a kind of climactic order. This procedure is war- 
ranted by the facts, first, that the dates of composition 
appear to be indeterminable, and, second, that the dates 
of composition do not affect the present discussion. 

The Broken Heart presents a clearly defined moral 
problem. Penthea, very much in love with Orgilus and 
betrothed to him, is forced to marry Bassanes. Orgilus, 
taking a purely rationalistic or idealistic view of the 
matter, refuses to acknowledge anv validity in the union 
of Penthea and Bassanes. Frantic with indignant passion 
he cries: 

I would possess my wifej the equity 
Of very reason bids me. 

Penthea with a supreme effort preserves self-control, 
and urges her desperate lover to resign himself to the 
irrevocable, pleading that the true quality of their mu- 
tual affection will best show itself in virtuous submission 
to necessity. Which of the two is right? In Elizabethan 
times when parents disposed of their children in a rather 
more highhanded fashion than now obtains — when 
Penelope Devereux was carried protesting to the altar 
to marry Lord Rich — was it not a fair question? 

By a subtlety in feminine characterization unsurpassed 
if not unequalled in the period Ford reveals the full 
tragic meaning of the problem. Penthea's conduct in 



31ntroDuction xxv 

this difficult crisis is beyond criticism. She shows ten- 
derness to her lover without tempting his weakness. 
She admits that they have been grievously wronged, 
but she will not consent to his righting that wrong by 
another. Under the burden of her own sorrow she finds 
strength to comfort his. Yet she is intensely human even 
at the height of an almost saintly renunciation; though 
she has the rare charity to wish him happy with another 
wife, she feels a sensitive solicitude for that wife's opin- 
ion of her. When she has finally been forced to send 
her lover away with sharp words, she is torn by the 
conflict of love and honor, and is dissolved in pity for 
the suffering of the unhappy man. Having resolved, 
come what may, to respect the ceremonial bond, she 
must fight for honor in a long and silent inner struggle 
in which victory is attended with no less misery than 
defeat. For she is held in a living death by her rela- 
tions with Bassanes, her husband. The situation has 
been a favorite on the modern stage. She is impaled on 
the horns of a dilemma — dishonor in the arms of Or- 
gilus, dishonor in the arms of Bassanes. Because she is 
a woman and the weight of convention is heavy upon 
her, she chooses the legitimatized rather than the unle- 
gitimatized shame. Yet at last her revolted spirit bursts 
into speech; and she begs her brother Ithocles, who 
was instrumental in her marriage, to kill her. ** How 
does thy lord esteem thee? " asks the now remorseful 
brother. Penthea's reply approaches the unbearable: 

Such an one 
As only you have made me; a faith breaker, 



xxvi 31ntrolmction 

A spotted whore ; forgive me, I am one, 
In act, not in desires, the gods must witness. 

For she that's wife to Orgilus, and lives 

In known adultery with Bassanes 

Is at the best a whore. Wilt kill me now ? 

This tremendous sense of involuntary pollution in a 
woman legally blameless and in the vulgar sense per- 
fectly respectable is a new note in the drama and an 
important one. 

Penthea's high-strung soul cannot for long endure 
the strain. Her mind begins to break down under the 
omnipresent horror of her unclassified sin. Stroke by 
stroke Ford makes it appear more and more dubious 
whether she has chosen the better part. With wits 
wandering on the verge of final dissolution she turns in 
the last gasp of her strangled emotion to the well-beloved 
Orgilus, murmuring of bride's laces and gathered roses. 
Over all still broods the undving horror; from the 
depths of pure pathos, from the ultimate bitterness of 
a ruined life comes her cry: 

Since I was first a wife, I might have been 

Mother to many pretty smiling babes; 

They would have smiled when I smiled, and for certain 

I should have cried when they cried; truly, brother, 

My father would have picked me out a husband, 

And then my little ones had been no bastards; 

But 'tis too late for me to marry now, 

I am past child-bearing. 

Such a revelation of complex tragic emotion in the 
soul of a pure woman cannot be found elsewhere in the 
old drama, even in Shakespeare — perhaps 1 should 
say, least of all in Shakespeare. I wish here to accent 



IdntroDuctton xxvii 

the words **complcx" and **pure." Dcsdemona, far 
example, is pure; but her tragic emotion is simple. The 
tragic emotion of Cleopatra, on the other hand, may be 
described as complex; but she cannot be described as 
pure. And in general the tragic heroines of the period 
range themselves under one banner or the other: under 
Desdemona's, Aspatia in the Ma'uP s Tr/igcdy, the 
Duchess of Malfi, and Dorothea in the Virgi?i Martyr; 
under Cleopatra's, Tamyra in Bussy W Amboisy Evadne 
in the Maid'' s Tragedy y Vittoria in the White Devil, 
and Beatrice-Joanna in the Changelmg. There is per- 
haps a third class of those who, like Mrs. Frankford in 
the Woman Killed with Ki?idnesSy are neither pure nor 
emotionally complex — weak sisters who are perfectly 
conventional even in their sins. The orthodox and un- 
adventurous ethics of the majority of the Elizabethan 
dramatists are seen in nothing more distinctly than in 
the fact that they keep their pure women out of moral 
dilemmas. In their representation of life the world may 
break the hearts of the innocent, but only the wicked, 
it seems, may break their own hearts. The tragic emo- 
tions of the pure are simple, because their disaster comes 
upon them from without; the tragic emotions of the 
guilty are complex, because their disaster is due to a 
discord in their own souls. In The Broke?i Heart 
Ford throws down the gauntlet to orthodox morality by 
placing a thoroughly pure woman in a genuine moral 
dilemma. This is his most notable innovation. By estab- 
lishing the tragic conflict of Penthea in her own spirit, 
he makes of her a distinctly modern type of heroine. In 
a mood of high and poignant seriousness he shows that 



} 



xxviii 3fl"ti*otmction 

keeping the laws and statutes may sometimes make 
against virtue, and the preservation of honor Ix; the 
wreck ot peace. 

Before leaving this play we must give a word to the 
cniincntlv Fordian hut far less complex character of 
Orgilus. Convinced that Penthea's resolution will never 
be moved, he fixes all his thoughts on revenge, and, in 
a kind of icv ardor or madness, murders Ithocles; for 
which he is sentenced to death with the approval of 
those surviving in the last act. It is to be noted, how- 
ever, that he welcomes death, dies bravely, and abso- 
lutely unrepentant. The man is reallv depicted as a 
martvr to the strength and fidelity of his passion; he is 
an uncompromising idealist. The laws against murder 
must be recognized; but bv emphasizing the outrage 
which Orgilus has suffered, the vehemence of passion 
by which he is consumed, and the stoical calm with 
which he meets his fate. Ford has made him appear 
rather a victim than a monster. The death of Penthea, 
the murder of Ithocles, the execution of Bassanes, and 
the death of Calantha all prove how fatal it is to offer 
resistance to omnipotent love. 

Lor't'\f Sticrijirt'y which treats of a more advanced de- 
gree of" forbidden love than Tbf Broktfi Heart, arouses 
in the reader a mingled feeling of admiration and dis- 
gust. It is not so evenly and carefully composed as The 
Broken Heart. It admits unenlivening comic scenes 
and an extensive and repulsive sub-plot. It employs 
prose freely, whereas "The Broken Heart is entirely in 
verse. Finally its moral issues are very badly defined, 
and it ends weakly in dense moral confusion. On the 



31ntioDuctton xxix 

other hand, the plot of Love'' s Sacrijice is a more mocl- 
ern conception. The principal characters are drawn 
with a bolder and more energetic stroke. The atmos- 
phere has a warmth and color not found in the Spartan 
play. And in the two or three best scenes there is a 
sheer dramatic intensity unsurpassed elsewhere in Ford's 
work. 

Love* s Sacrifice is distinctly modern in conception, 
for it deals scricnisly with " elective allinilies " after 
marriage. The Duke of CarafFa loves and marries Bi- 
anca, a respectable woman of inferior rank, who re- 
spects her luisband's position and virtues but feels no 
great affection for him. Then appears Fernando, young, 
handsome, captivating, the third person of what we 
have learned to call the ** inevitable triangle." lie con- 
ceives a vi(ilent passion for Bianca, which, as often as 
he declares, she virtuously repulses. But these oft-re- 
peated protestations of love, though they do not at once 
conquer her will, insidiously take possession of her 
heart. The critical turn in the unequal duel is subtly 
conceived. In a moment of utuisual temptation Ivr- 
nando renews his fiery pleading, and once more l>i- 
anca with greater vehemence and asperity than ever 
s{)urns him fron) her. The imjictuous lover is at last 
touchetl in his better self by her constancy, and begs 
forgiveness; which being granted, they bid each other 
good-night. 

But alas for the perverse reactions of the human 
spirit! Bianca's virtue has cooled F'ernando's passion; 
but Bianca's passion is kindled by Fernando's virtue. 
While he assailed her, siie stood on her guard; when he 



XXX 31ntrotmction 

desists from his attack, her defenses tall. Distraught 
with stifled emotions, she steals into Fernando' s cham- 
ber, clad only in her night mantle, and finds him 
sleeping. His quick forgett'ulness bewilders her. She 
wakes him, and, as if frenzied by some demoniac power, 
lays bare her soul in an agony of confession, in shame 
and in sorrow: 

Howe'er my tongue 

Did often chide thy love, each word thou spak'st 

Was music to my ear; was never poor, 

Poor wretched woman liv'd that lov'd like me, 

So truly, so unfeignedly. 

I vow'd a vow to live a constant wife : 
1 have done so 5 nor was there in the world 
A man created could have broke that truth 
For all tlie glories of the earth but thou, 
But thou, Fernando ! Do I love thee now ? 

Fernando, amazed by her abandonment to a passion so 
much more imperious than his own, can only gasp, 
** Beyond imagination! '* She hurries breathlessly on: 

True, I do. 
Beyond imagination: if no pledge 
Of love can instance what I speak is true 
But loss of my best joys, here, here, Fernando, 
Be satisfied, and ruin me. 

Again Fernando is so stunned that she has to make very 
clear what she means. But on the heels of surrender 
she cries: 

Mark me now, 
If thou dost spoil me of this robe of shame, 
By my best comforts, here I vow again, 
To thee, to heaven, to the world, to time, 
Ere yet the morning shall new-christen day, 
I'll kill myself! 



3flntroDiiction xxxi 

Say what we will of the character of this woman — ^ 
and there is little question what we shall have to say — 
here is the very whirlwind of conflicting emotions. It is 
doubtless a situation which should never be shown upon 
the stage; but it is wonderfully realized. It is morbid; 
but it is terrific — this love which must express its utter- 
most, though the cost be death. Beside the tragic tem- 
pest in the body and soul of the woman, Fernando's 
ardor seems but a little warmth of the blood. He shrinks 
before the storm he has raised, and, scarcely more 
from consideration than from terror, he refuses her sacri- 
fice. The momentous meeting ends with mutual vows 
of love which is to keep on the hither side of criminal 
realization. 

Up to this point the main story is conducted with 
great strength and skill. The characters arc clearly con- 
ceived and consistently portrayed. The action is clean 
and swift, with telling interplay of opposed wills 
strained in the crisis to the breaking point on the brink 
of disastrous decision. But after the supremely dra- 
matic niitlnight meeting Bianca and l^'ernando begin to 
lose their bearings, and unhappily Ford seems to lose 
his bearings, too. The lovers grow less and less Pla- 
tonic; their pledges prove poor shifts with the devil. In 
the fifth act they are indulging in dangerous specula- 
tions. Bianca speaks: 

Why sliouldst thou not he mine ? Why should the laws, 

The iron laws of ceremony, bar 

Mutual embraces? What's a vow? a vow ? 

Can there he sin in unity ? 



xxxii 31ntroDuctton 

I had rather change my life 
With any waiting-woman in the land 
To purchase one night's rest with thee, Fernando, 
Than be Caraffa's spouse a thousand years. 

The duke interrupts their embraces with drawn sword. 
Instead of showing fear or imploring pardon, Bianca 
turns hussy, flaunts her love for Fernando, and courts 
death, although at the same time she declares that she 
is innocent. Goaded at length to fury, the duke gives 
her a mortal wound. Bianca dies with these extraordi- 
nary words on her lips: 

Live to repent too late. Commend my love 
To thy true friend, my love to him that owes it; 
My tragedy to theej my heart to — to — Fernando. 

And so the tragic heroine passes away without a thought 
of repentance, without a shadow of suspicion that 
she has anything of which to repent. Indeed she ac- 
cepts her martyrdom, confident of her innocence as a 
very Desdemona. Her great love for Fernando she 
wears as a crown of glory. Yet, it is sufficiently plain, 
though she has abstained from the sin of the flesh, that 
her mind is as spotted with adultery as the merest 
strumpet's. 

Moreover, from this scene to the end of the play it 
is indubitable that Ford takes precisely Bianca' s posi- 
tion — that he wishes to leave the impression that she 
is a perfectly irreproachable woman. He makes Fer- 
nando assure the duke's counsellors that ** a better 
woman never blessed the earth." They agree, and 
take his side against the ** jealous madman," her hus- 
band. At the point of death Fernando assures the duke 



31ntroi5uction xxxiii 

that the world's wealth could not redeem the loss of" 
** such a spotless wife." The duke agrees, and repents 
of his ** hellish rage," declaring that **so chaste, so 
dear a wife" no man ever enjoyed. His faithful sec- 
retary, who first awakened his suspicions, is to be 
hanged on the prison top as a damned villain till he 
starve to death. He looks upon himself — so do the 
rest — as a rash murderer. In remorse he commits 
suicide, having first given orders that he be buried in 
one tomb with his chaste wife and his ** unequalled 
friend," Fernando! And in his last breath he hopes 
that his fate will be a warning to jealous husbands. 

Now the conclusion of this play must seem to every 
person of normal sense singularly wrong, weak, and 
futile. In the beginning of it every one knows what is 
decent; in the middle Fernando and Bianca grow skep- 
tical as to what is decent; in the end no one knows what 
is decent — - not even the author. That is the impression 
Love^ s Sacrifice makes upon the modern reader. Never- 
theless, Ford would doubtless have denied that there had 
been any moral vacillation on his part; and, indeed, it is 
not difficult to show that he has treated his theme in per- 
fect consistency with his romantic convictions. Love, as 
he had declared in Honour Triumpha?ity he regarded 
as the supreme good in life and as the irresistible master 
of the destinies of those whom it has joined together. 
Bianca and Fernando, therefore, in loving each other 
even unto death are not only fulfilling their inevitable 
destinies, but are also pursuing their supreme good. Of 
course. Ford might say, it was unfortunate that they did 
not meet before Bianca was married. That was their 



xxxiv 31mroDuctiou 

fatal misfortune; that was their tragedy. Yet on the 
whole how nobly they conducted themselves under 
the stress of adverse circumstances. They recognized the 
general force of the matrimonial bond, and they with- 
held from their love its natural sustenance in order not 
to violate that bond. As for refraining from love itself, 
that were as impossible as drawing the stars from their 
courses. Even the jealous husband, then, must confess 
that they conformed to the limit ot their power with 
the conventions of this somewhat helter skelter world. 
In some such tashion as this Ford himself must have jus- 
tified the work. 

' Tis Pity is extremely interesting both as a play and 
as a psychological document; for it represents the height 
of Ford's achievement as a dramatist and the depth of 
his corruption as an apostle ot passion. The utterances 
of critics upon it from the seventeenth century to the 
present day emphasize the necessitv of a divided judg- 
ment. Langbaine declared "that it equals any of our 
author's plays; and were to be commended, did not the 
author paint the incestuous love between Giovanni and 
his sister Annabella in too beautiful colours." Lamb 
pointed out that "even in the poor perverted reason of 
Giovanni and Annabella, we discover traces ot that fiery 
particle, which in the irregular starting from out of the 
road of beaten action, discovers something of a right 
line even in obliquity, and shows hints of an improv- 
able greatness in the lowest descents and degradations 
of our nature." Git^brd substantially reiterated the 
sentiments of Langbaine: "It [the poetry] is in truth 
too seductive tor the subject, and flings a soft and sooth- 



introduction xxxv 

ing light over what in its natural state would glare with 
salutary and repulsive horror." Fleay is even more 
biting; he says: ** Well allowed of, when acted, by the 
Earl of Peterborough to whom he dedicated it. So it is 
now by some critics and publishers . . . but not by 
any well regulated mind." In connection with Fleay's, 
the comment of Ellis is striking: "In 'T/j /*//y," says 
Ellis, **Ford touched the highest point that he ever 
reached. He never succeeded in presenting an image 
so simple, passionate, and complete, so free compara- 
tively from mixture of weak or base elements as that of 
the boy and girl lovers who were brother and sister. 
The tragic story is unrolled from first to last with fine 
truth and clear perceptions." Ward says, ** The 
poison of this poetic treatment of mortal sin is dissolved 
in a cup of sweetness." Schelling finds in it ** consum- 
mate poetic art ... a strange and unnatural origi- 
nality like a gorgeous and scented but poisonous exotic 
of the jungle." 

Of all these criticisms Lamb's seems to me the most 
penetrating and the most illuminating. Speaking in his 
poetical Brunonian fashion of ** that fiery particle " and 
the ** something of a right line even in obliquity " he 
touches upon the intense romantic idealism which 
marks all Ford's lovers, and which is the fundamental 
and controlling spirit in all Ford's most characteristic 
work. It will not do to attribute his amazing attempt 
to excite sympathy for the depraved hero and heroine to 
the general spirit of the time ; the unnatural passion 
which is the theme of his play was quite as abhorrent to 
common feelings in the age of Charles I. as it is today. 



xxxvi 3|ntroliuction 

Indeed, there is some evidence that it was even more 
abhorrent. In the Calendar of State Papers for 1631 y 
two years before the publication of * lis P/Vy, is re- 
corded under the date of May 12 a ** sentence of the 
ecclesiastical commissioners upon Sir Giles Allington for 
intermarrying with Dorothy Dalton, daughter of Mi- 
chael Dalton and his wife, which latter was half-sister to 
Sir Giles." A few days later the Rev. Joseph Mead 
writing to Sir Martin Stuteville dwells upon the im- 
pressiveness of the trial at which eight bishops presided, 
and upon the heavy penalties imposed, which included 
a fine of ^2000 upon the procurer of the license. In 
conclusion Mead writes: ** It was the solemnest, the 
gravest and the severest censure that ever, they say, 
was made in that court." ' 

It is possible that this case, doubtless the talk of Lon- 
don, mav have suggested to Ford the composition of 
'T/'j P//y. It was exactly the situation to appeal to his 
sympathies as a poet and to his interest as a lawyer. 
Here again, as in the Devonshire -Rich affair, the im- 
pulses of the heart were in conflict with the world's 
laws as defined by the ecclesiastical court. The Bishop 
of London had pronounced Sir Giles Allington 's mar- 
riage a most heinous crime. But Ford did not look to 
bishops for his moral judgments; his court of last appeal 
was the small circle of those unfettered spirits who re- 
cognized a kind of higher morality in obedience to the 
heart. It would at any rate have accorded with his 
temper and his previous work to write a play presenting 
a case of incest much more flagrant than that before the 

* Court and Times of Charles /., vol. 11, p. 119. 



^Introduction xxxvii 

public yet so veiled with poetical glamour as to elicit 
for the criminals both pity and admiration. That, at 
least, is what he did. 

He approaches the theme not with the temper of a 
stern realist bent on laying bare the secret links of cause 
and effect in a ferocious and ugly story of almost un- 
mentionable lust and crime, but with the temper of a 
decadent romanticist bent on showing the enthralling 
power of physical beauty and the transfiguring power 
of passion. He accordingly makes the ill-starred Gio- 
vanni and Annabella the well-bred offspring of a pros- 
perous gentleman of Parma. The young man has had 
every opportunity of religious training, study at the 
university, and intercourse with good society. The girl, 
brought up carefully in her father's house, is endowed 
with every grace of mind and body, and is flattered by 
the attention of distinguished suitors. 

But like their author they have been nourished on 
that great mass of Renaissance literature which in Italy 
and in England establishes the religion and theology of 
earthly love. In the opening scene Giovanni, already 
in the throes of passion, fortifies himself with philo- 
sophical authority, casuistical argument, and Platonic 
nonsense quite in the vein of Spenser's hymns. Shock- 
ing as it is, we must recognize that this blossomed 
corruption is rooted in the fair garden of Elizabethan 
romance. To Giovanni, as to the youthful Spenser, 
love is the supreme thing in the world, beauty the un- 
questioned object of adoration. Since he finds this 
adorable beauty in his sister, his soul conforming to 
its celestial nature must bow and worship. Duty in its 



xxxviii 31ntrolmction 

ordinary sense is not in this field at all; the soul's duty 
is complete submission to the divinity ot beauty — 

Must I not praise 
That luMuty which, if tVam'd anew, the gods 
Would make a god of, it they had it there, 
And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them ? 

This note is struck again and again; thus in complaint: 

The love of thee, my sister, and the view 
Of thy immortal beauty have untun'd 
All harmony both of my rest and life. 

Thus argumentatively: 

Wise nature first in your creation meant 

To make you mine, else't had been sin and foul 

To share one beauty to a double soul. 

In another more extended passage he actually makes 
the Platonic identification of the good and the beautiful, 
repeating in part exactly the argument which Ford had 
employed in Honour Triumphant when defending the 
position, ** Fair lady was never false " : 

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good. 

It is a principle which you have taught, 

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame 

And composition of the mind doth follow 

The frame and composition ot the body: 

So where the body's furniture is beauty, 

The mind's must needs be virtue j which allow'd, 

Virtue itself is reason but refin'd, 

And love the quintessence of that: this proves, 

My sister's beauty being rarely fair 

Is rarely virtuous; chieHy in her love, 

And chiefly in that love, her love to me. 

According to the romantic creed the worship of 
beauty is not inercly the soul's duty; it is also the soul's 



JlntroUuction xxxix 

necessity. Hence Ciiovanni's reiterated accent upon 
fate : 

Lost ! I am lost ! my fates have doom'd my death: 
The more I strive I love. 

Giovanni ilistinguislics between the common motions 
of the blood and the inexorable power not himself: 

Or I must speak or burst. 'Tis not, I know, 
My lust, but 'tis my fate that leads mc on 

He recognizes that resistance to this power is mortal: 

'Tis my destiny 
That you must either love, or I must die. 

Under the stress of his passion Giovanni becomes 
an absolutely uncompromising exponent of Ford's ro- 
mantic idealism. Fn the first part of the play he exhibits 
some regard, though slight respect, for ordinary mo- 
rality. But he is soon brushing aside his scruples with 
the impatient inquiry: 

Shall a peevish sound, 
A customary form, from man to man. 
Of brother and of sister, be a bar 
'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me ? 

And before long he has resolved that prayer and heaven 
and sin are ** dreams and old men's tales to fright un- 
steady youth." In this conviction he is confirmed by 
Annabclla's acknowledgment that he had captivated 
her heart long before he challenged her to surrender. 
By making her yield at once with an abandon equal to 
Giovanni's Ford plainly intends to show that the souls 
of the brother and sister were predestined for union in 
that Platonic heaven of lovers whence they came. With 



xl JflntroDuction 

this conviction strong upon them both, they fall upon 
their knees and vow the most astounding vow by the 
sacredness of their mother's ashes to be true one to 
the other. It is the passionate fidelity of Giovanni to his 
vow, his desperate single-mindedness, which lends to 
-this terrible transaction its evil splendor. Later, under 
the shadow of impending doom, the Friar makes a vain 
effort to shake the young man's resolution. If it were 
possible for a moment to forget the monstrosity of the 
affair, the fierce ecstasy of Giovanni's reply might stir 
a tragic thrill: 

Friar. The throne of mercy is above your trespass} 
Yet time is left you both — 

Gio. To embrace each other, 

Else let all time be struck quite out of number. 

So, too, the martyr-like rapture of Annabella when, 
her crime confessed, she is threatened by her husband 
with instant death: 

Che morte piu dolce eke morire per amore f 

and as he hales her up and down by the hair: 

Morendo in gra'zia dee morire sen-za dolore. 

As the fatal net closes around the lovers. Ford seems 

to summon all his powers to represent their misery as 

the price of their devotion to the highest ends of which 

their souls are capable. Giovanni nerves himself to take 

vengeance upon his enemies that when he falls he may 

die a ** glorious death." He slays his sister — not in 

.a blind rage, but to save her from the vile world — 

tenderly and with a kiss and crying: 

Go thou, white in thy soul, to fill a throne 

>— - Of innocence and sanctity in heaven. 



3(IntroUuction xU 

Then turning away as from the sacrifice of a white 
lamb without blemish to the god of love, this fervid 
idealist, fresh from adultery, incest and murder, bids 
his heart stand up and act its ** last and greatest part " 
— another murder! Dying, he seals with his last 
breath his faith in the passion that has wrecked his life: 

Where'er I go, let me enjoy this grace, 
Freely to view my Annabella's face. 

Now it appears to me incontestable that a dramatist 
who seeks such effects as ' Tis Pity produces must write 
with a conscious and clearly-defined theory. Ford can- 
not be explained as an imitator of his contemporaries; 
for his impressive attempt to make his auditors believe 
in the whitenesss of a soul despite the abhorrent pollu- 
tion of its fleshly envelope is without precedent in the 
English drama of his age. ' The man is original in his 
fundamental conception of the nature of tragedy. I am 
not sure, with Havelock Ellis, that Ford ** foreboded 
new ways of expression " ; his analytic power, so 
much commented upon by his critics, he shares with 
Shakespeare and Middleton and Webster. I think it 
clear, however, that, so far as English drama is con- 
cerned, he did forebode a modern conception of the 
tragic conflict. That is to say, while his contemporaries 
continued to represent the tragic catastrophe as the 
disastrous issue of a clash between good and evil, he 

^ There is sufficient non-dramatic precedent; compare these lines 
from Spenser's " Hymne in Honour of Beautie ": 

Nathelesse the soule is faire and beauteous still, 
How ever fleshes fault it filthy make; 
For things immortal no corruption take- 



xiii 3|ntroliuction 

seized the subtler and more bitter and less salutary no- 
tion, familiar enough to-day, that the tragic catastrophe 
results from the clash of the relative good with the ab- 
solute good. In other words, he foreboded a new way 
of envisaging morality. Recall Giovanni's valediction 
to the soul of his sister, and then read these words 
from Maurice Maeterlinck's ' Treasure df the Humble : 

*< It would seem as though our code of morality were 
changing, advancing with timid steps toward loftier re- 
gions that cannot be seen. And the moment has perhaps 
come when certain new questions should be asked. . . . 
What would happen if the soul were brought into a tri- 
bunal of souls? Of what would she be ashamed? Which 
are the things she fain would hide? Would she, like a 

^ It is noteworthy in this connection that Maeterlinck has adapted 
T/i Fity for the modern stage: see Bibliography. M. Maeterlinck 
is, of course, also familiar with Platonic and Neo-Platonic theories. 
His modern heresy is simply a resuscitation of an obsolete, poetical 
commonplace. 

Charles Lamb rather curiously quoted as comment upon his selec- 
tion from this play a sonorous passage of Sir Thomas Browne's Fseu- 
dodoxia Epidemica, of which this is the gist: " Of sins heteroclital, 
and such as want either name or precedent, there is oft-times a sin even 
in their histories." Weber, Gifford, and Dyce in their complete edi- 
tions of the tragedy have with even less appositeness reproduced the 
passage. Loath to depart from the fine tradition — now a century 
old — of remembering Browne on this occasion, I respectfully sug- 
gest to future editors of Ford the substitution of the following maxims 
from Christian Morals : " Live by old ethics and the classical rules 
of honesty. Put no new names or notions upon authentic virtues 
and vices. Think not that morality is ambulatory^ that vices in one 
age are not vices in another; or that virtues, which are under the 
everlasting seal of right reason, may be stamped by opinion. And 
therefore though vicious times invert the opinions of things, and 
set up a new ethics against virtue, yet hold thou unto old morality." 



31ntrotiuction xHii 

bashful maiden, cloak beneath her long hair the number- 
less sins of the flesh? She knows not of them, and those 
sins have never come near her. They were committed a 
thousand miles from her throne; and the soul even of the 
prostitute would pass unsuspectingly through the crowd, 
with the transparent smile of the child in her eyes." 

Whatever we may think of Maeterlinck's mystical 
theory — I, for one, consider it beautiful and pernicious 
nonsense — it is worth while to observe that his dra- 
matic illustration of it is entirely different from Ford's. 
He has the tact to perceive that plays built upon this 
theory have no place upon the realistic stage. He is 
even doubtful whether genuine tragedies of the spirit 
can be fitly represented by actors at all. They must 
touch the sympathy of the reader invisibly as he sits 
brooding in quietness, and like the indefinable appeal 
of music be felt rather than understood. Accordingly in 
his earlier work Maeterlinck divested his scene of every 
reminder of the gross and to him insignificant physical 
world, in order to make clear a stage for the interaction 
of almost disembodied spirits. In the dim light of the 
wan Arthurian realm where his tragedies are set, the 
passions ebb and flow with the tides of an unplumbed 
and uncharted sea, by whose waters naked soul meets 
naked soul under the wings of destiny. No question 
rises there of heredity, training, environment; for only 
immortal and immaterial essences are there engaged; 
and they cannot be affected by these mortal and ma- 
terial forces. 

Ford's theory of the inviolability of the soul has 
much in common with Maeterlinck's. It seems, how- 



xiiv 3|ntroUuction 

ever, much more startling because it is clothed in very 
human flesh and blood, and set upon a realistic stage. 
Ford presents his hero and heroine, for such they must 
be called, in the light of common day. He prepares us 
for a tragedy in which we should witness the operation 
of the laws of this world; but he presents us a tragedy in 
which the protagonists are emancipated from, the laws 
of this world, and act in accordance with the laws of a 
Platonized Arcadia. They are idealists in one world, 
but criminal degenerates in the other. 

The originality of 'TVj Pity has been pretty gen- 
erally conceded, at least by English critics; but it has 
not always been made sufficiently clear that the origi- 
nality lies in the treatment and not in the choice of the 
theme. As a matter of fact this subject was handled by 
several of Ford's important contemporaries, and it may 
be worth while briefly to indicate their decisively difi^er- 
ent method of approaching it. The crime here involved 
constitutes, it will be recalled, one of the iniquitous 
elements in the marriage of Claudius and Gertrude in 
Hamlety and it furnishes a shuddering background of 
horror for the first act oi Pericles. To the healthy mind 
of Shakespeare it is clearly a matter abhorrent. It is a 
part of a tangled web of lust which Tourneur made into 
the Revenger'' s Tragedy. But though Tourneur chose 
corrupt material, he dealt with it in a sound fashion. 
With him there was no poetical glozing, no veil of il- 
lusion cloaking the beast, no scape-goat fate occupying 
the place of the abdicating will, no ** higher morality'* 
subtly aspersing common decency. When his charac- 
ters commit gross or unnatural crimes, he makes it 



31ntroi)uction xlv 

perfectly apparent that the moving force is bestial drunk-, 
enness or physical degeneracy, not celestial foreordina- 
tion. Thus the incestuous Spurio cries: 

1 was begot in impudent wine and lust. 
Step-mother, I consent to thy desires. 

Beaumont and Fletcher's KiTig and No King has for 
its central theme the love of Arbaces for his supposed 
sister, Panthea. But in the end it transpires that Arbaces 
is a changeling, and in reality not related at all to Pan- 
thea. Nevertheless the authors do not wholly rely upon 
the unexpected denouement to explain the moral aberra- 
tion of the hero. They tell us in the first place that Pan- 
thea was but nine years old when Arbaces left her not 
to return till she had reached her maturity ; consequently 
he appears to be smitten rather with a fair stranger than 
with a sister. And in the second place they spare no 
pains to present him as a man of abnormally violent and 
unruly temperament. Furthermore, when after fearful 
struggles his passion begins to master him, he does not 
justify himself as an apostle of love and beauty and their 
** higher" reasonableness; on the contrary he declares: 

I have lost 
The only difference betwixt man and beast, 
My reason. 

And Panthea, instead of admitting with Annabella 
that her lover has *<won the field and never fought," 
swears that she would rather *< search out death" than 
** welcome such a sin." Fortunately Beaumont and 
Fletcher rescue her from the predicament by showing 
that the dilemma never existed. In Brome's Love- Sick 



xlvi idntrotiuction 

Court the supposedly incestuous passion, which is a 
subsidiary element in the play, is in a similar way 

- proved innocent by disclosures in the last act. Between 
Middleton's Women Beware Women and ' Tis Pity 
there is a very considerable parallelism of situation; in 
both plays there is a group of uncle, nephew and ser- 
vant engaged in the courtship of a woman already in- 

l^volved in criminal relations with a near kinsman. But 
parallelism of treatment there is not. For one thing, the 
criminal relationship is entered upon in partial ignorance 
of its nature; for another, there is not the slightest at- 
tempt to idealize the character of the union. The play 
is constructed by a realist who is interested in showing 
how crime punishes itself by natural laws. In the Un- 
natural Combat — of which the title alone suggests a 
significant difference from ^ Tis Pity — Massinger pre- 
sents a situation similar to that of Shelley's Cenci, and 
treats it with artistic seriousness and the most uncom- 
promising moral severity. He prepares the way for 
Malefort's ultimate degradation by making him the pois- 
oner of his wife and the murderer of his son before he 
becomes the lover of his daughter. And yet he makes 
even Malefort shudder before his last temptation and 
clearly recognize its character: Malefort, infinitely 
wickeder and wiser than Giovanni, says in so many 
words that the torch which kindles his wild desires was 
not lighted at Cupid's altars, but was thrown into his 
bosom from hell. Vile though he is, he possesses the 
moral vision and candor of the Shakesperean villain. 
His passion, needless to say, is not reciprocated. He 
dies, not like Giovanni resolute and unshaken in his 



^Introduction xlvii 

sinister idealism but rather like Marlowe's Faustus, in 
terrific moral agony, cursing his *« cause of being." The 
tragedy ends with a tremendous vindication of "the 
sacred laws of God and man prophaned"; the last 
speech of Malefort is cut short by a thunderbolt which 
kills him. That flash of lightning may fairly be consid- 
ered as Massinger' s comment on incest — a comment, 
on the whole, rather more illuminating and salutary than 
the tearful couplet in which Ford's Cardinal bids a 
compassionate adieu to Annabella. 

This examination of plays related in subject to ' Tis 
Pity serves but to emphasize Ford's independence of his 
English contemporaries so far as treatment is concerned. 
I have, nevertheless, taken pains to say that his attitude 
toward incestuous passion is without precedent in Eng- 
\lish drama. It is not without precedent in ItaUan 
drama. I refer to a play which so far as I know has 
never been employed to explain ' Tis Pity — Canace e 
MacareOy a tragedy written on classical models by 
Sperone Speroni. a distinguished critic, orator, and 
poet of the sixteenth century. If, as Professor Schelling 
asserts. Ford did indeed show a remarkable ** freedom 
from the influence of Italian models,* ' ^ the analogies be- 
tween these two plays, both in plot and in treatment, 
are surprising. If Ford did not write with a knowledge 
of Speroni's work, he at least wrote thoroughly in the 
spirit of it. It may even be said, I think without dan- 
ger of contradiction, that Canace e Macareo is a more 

^ Elizabethan Drama^voX. ii, p. 333. The statement may have 
been influenced byKoeppel, ^e/Ien-Studien, p. 176: ^^ Ford's lite- 
rarhches Lebensiverk ist fast ganz fret "von italienischen RinfiussenJ'* 



xiviii 3[introt)uction 

plausible "source** for ' 77j Pity than anything that 
has been proposed heretofore. 

The Italian play is a humanized dramatization of a 
myth treated by Ovid in Heroidesy xi, a frequent point 
of reference for Elizabethan casuists. The theme is the 
tragical ending of the incestuous loves of Canace and 
Macareo, the fair son and daughter of Eolo (^^Eolus). 
As in ' Tis Pityy their criminal intercourse is revealed 
by its unhappy fruit. On discovering the state of affairs, 
Eolo forces his daughter to kill herself. Macareo takes 
his own life. As in ' Tis Pityy the lovers die amid the 
suspended gayety of a birthday celebration. The nurse 
of Canace corresponds accurately in function to the 
"tutoress" of Annabella; the servant of Macareo 
corresponds roughly to the confessor of Giovanni; and 
there are some other minor correspondences. 

The really striking parallelism, however, is in the 
treatment. Speroni, like Ford, bends all his energies to 
the task of soliciting pity and admiration for the un- 
natural lovers. He, too, insists that they are driven on 
not by lust but by fate or divine foreordering: 

Ma quel vero intelletto, che dal cielo 

Alia mente materna 

Mostra in sogno il mio error sotto alcun velo, 

Sa bien che '1 mio peccato, 

Non malizia mortale, 

Ma fu celeste forza, 

Che ogni nostra virtu vince ed ammorza. 

He, too, makes his hero a Renaissance Platonist, iden- 
tifying the good and the beautiful and the worship of 
beauty with the love of virtue. Macareo, like Giovanni, 
regards his love as a proof of his intelligence: 



3(lntroDuction xlix 

Amo infinitamente e volentieri 

Le bellezze, i costumi, e le virtuti 

Di mia sorella, e parmi 

Che indegnamente degno 

Saria di sentimento e di ragione, 

Chi si rare eccellenze non amasse, 

Ovunque ei le trovasse. 

When danger threatens, Macareo is ready to rush 
on death without fear, for the fatal blade will release 
from the erring flesh his immaculate soul {^Panima im- 
maculata). In the other world he hopes to be reunited 
to his sister; even the verbal parallelism is close here. 
Anticipating Giovanni' s 

Where'er I go, let me enjoy this grace, 
Freely to view my Annabella's face 

Macareo says: 

In eterno vivra I'anima mia: 
E fia suo paradiso 
II poter vagheggiare 
L'ombra del suo bel viso. 

Both lovers die unrepentant and in unshaken loyalty to 
each other. Canace, on her deathbed, says that her one 
consolation is the knowledge that her name and face 
will live in the heart of her brother, to whom she sends 
this message: 

Moriamo volentieri, 

Tu per esser fedele, io per amare. 

This is precisely the spirit of Annabella's 

Che morte piu dolce che morire per amore? 

After the death of the children, Eolo repents of his 
part in it, and declares that he has earned for himself 



1 31ntrot)uction 

eternal infamy by ending the lives of those whose only 
fault was that they loved. For, says he, ** present and 
future times, forgetting their amorous errors, will blame 
only my cruelty." Here Eolo anticipates the opinion 
of Giovanni, 

If ever after-times should hear 
Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps 
The laws of conscience and of civil use 
May justly blame us, yet when they but know 
Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour 
Which would in other incests be abhorred. 

Canace e Macareo seems to have impressed Speroni's 
contemporaries much as '77/ P/'/v impresses us to-day; 
for in the polite and learned circles of sixteenth century 
Italy it produced a critical controversy as interesting as 
the play itself. The summaries and fragments of the 
lectures in defense of the tragedy delivered in the Acca- 
demia drgli Elevnti in Padua are particularly illum- 
inating, because they express substantially what Ford 
would probably have said had he been challenged to 
defend ' Jh Pity. Since it is by no means impossible 
that Ford knew Speroni's defense as well as his drama, 
it may not be amiss briefly to suggest the nature of his 
arguments.' 

' Sperone Speroni was born in 1500 and died in 1588. As a 
young man he was professor of logic at I'adua. In 1528 he re- 
signed his chair and devoted himself to a life of scholarly leisure. 
In 1546 the first authentic edition of Canace was published. This 
tragedy gave rise to a critical controversy which continued inter- 
mittingly till 1590. Speroni was also author of numerous critical 
treatises and dialogues on language, love, ladies, etc., and was a 
copious correspondent with Italian poets and men of letters. In 
1551 eight of the dialogues were translated into French. (Upon the 



3IntroUuction li 

The weightiest charge against Canace e Macareo was 
that the chief characters, being thoroughly vicious 
(^scelerate)y had according to Aristotelian panons no 
place in tragedy. To this the reply is made that they 
actually appeared in tragedy of Aristotle's day, and 
that they are not thoroughly vicious, but middling 
characters, neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. In 
this connection, Speroni reminds his hearers of two ar- 
guments urged by Dejopeja, wife of Eolo. The chil- 
dren did not deserve death, she maintained, first, 
because they had merely done per for za what the gods 
do per volonta in heaven; second, because they had 
done that in the Iron Age which was permitted in the 
innocent Age of Gold. This position is supported by 
a multitude of references to the poets. Then, glancing 
at the customs of the ancient Persians and Egyptians, 

considerable fame and influence of Speroni in France see La Sources 
Jtaliennes de la ** Dejfense et Illustration de la hangue Fran^onCy^ 
Pierre Villey, Paris, 1908.) Professor Spingarn informs me that 
there are " constant allusions to him in the earlier French criticism 
— e.g.y La Mesnardiere, Po'ctique^ 1640 "; it seems probable that 
English acquaintance with him in the seventeenth century was fre- 
quently second hand. The earliest English reference that 1 find is 
in Coryat's Crudities^ 1611. Coryat describes the statue of Speroni 
in the Palace at Padua and transcribes the Latin epitaph beneath 
it. At this time, says Coryat, there were 1500 students at the uni- 
versity — among them many Englishmen. Later references and 
allusions may be found in Sir William Alexander's Anacrtsit^ ? 1634 
(Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century ^ I, 185); 
Butler's Upon Critics, ? 1678 {^Critical Essays, u, 280)5 Rymer's 
Tragedies of the Last Age, 1678 (page 77 in the second edition, 
1692) — Rymer gives the plot of Canace at some length and dis- 
cusses it; Dryden's Syl-vae^ 1 685 (Ker's Essays of John Dryden^ i, 
256). 



Hi 31ntroDuction 

Speroni comes to a point of distinct coincidence with 
Ford, namely, that the union of brother and sister is 
forbidden not by nature but by the laws, and not even 
by all laws. Therefore, as the example of the best 
poets proves, things done under the influence of im- 
measurable love are not to be classed as criminal. ** It 
may be objected," he says in substance, ** that I my- 
self have in the play called the lovers scelerate. Not 
so; do not confound me with the persons of the tra- 
gedy." 

In his second lecture Speroni attempts to prove that 
pity falls justly in every case upon those who have suf- 
fered for love. To defend this position he resorts to 
exactly that form of romantic logic which we observed 
in Ford's youthful pamphlets and later in the mouth of 
Giovanni. It is the privilege of unfortunate lovers to 
be pitied; for love is the desire of beauty. The recog- 
nition of beauty is the function of man which distin- 
- guishes him from the brute. It is pecuhar to man to 
.recognize and delight in beauty, because it is the func- 
tion of reason. For beauty consists in proportion, and 
agreement and order of the parts; but where these ex- 
ist, there are also prius and posterius and antecedens and 
consequens ; and these things can be recognized only by 
jthe reason. Therefore man alone knows beauty, and 
exhibits his reason by delighting in it. It is, in short, 
, the privilege of unfortunate lovers to be pitied, because 
they have come to grief through the exercise of their 
highest faculty. To make the contention specific, **the 
love of the twins of the tragedy is not disonestOy^^ because 
the ** love of country and of glory is not so peculiar to 



3fintroDuction liii 

a human being as that love which is desire of beauty. 
Therefore, sin caused by this latter is more human, be- 
cause this species is found only in man ; but the other 
two are found also in other animals." 

I have dwelt at considerable length upon the tragedy 
and the criticism of the *' Plato " of the Paduart acad- 
emy because in this forgotten Italian material are to be 
found the full illustration and the explicit theory of 
every singular characteristic in Ford's most individual 
play. Here is the Platonic theology of love — its logic, 
its insistence upon the inviolability of the soul, its mystical 
reverence of passion, and its earnest fatalism — seriously 
applied to the extenuation of hideous crime and to the 
glorification of the criminals. \i^ Cntiace e Mac area was 
not the direct source of ' Tis Pity, it was at any rate a 
noteworthy tributary to that stream of bewildering and 
dangerous neo-pagan ideas which flowed into England 
from Italy, and made the production of ' Tis Pity pos- 
sible. The decadent and vicious idealism of both of 
these tragedies — this is perhaps sufficient justification 
for considering them attentively — is the fruit of the 
general moral and intellectual emancipation of the Re- 
naissance. 

From this survey of Ford's work it should appear 
plainly enough that he was not one of the myriad- 
minded and puissant men of the age, to whom nothing 
human was alien. It seems as if temperament, culture, 
and the time-spirit had conspired to make him a writer 
of originality and power only within extremely narrow 
limits. I have said that his reputation rests upon his 
three tragedies, and one of them. Lovers Sacrifice, 



liv 31ntroliuction 

is a failure. It would scarcely be going too far to say 
that no contributive tendency and no excellence of ar- 
tistic achievement peculiarly his would be ignored if he 
were remembered only by the two plays included in 
this volume. Here are his best plots; all but one — 
Bianca — of his memorable characters; his sweetest 
poetry; his fundamental and creative ideas. His amor- 
ous and melancholic temperament tended to restrict his 
outlook, even from youth, to the field of love and 
sexual passion. His reading in the romantic literature 
of the last quarter of the sixteenth century confirmed 
his natural bent, and added to his emotions whatever in- 
tellectual content was possessed by the Platonic theology 
of love. If his legal training affected his literary pro- 
cesses, I suspect we may discover traces of its influence 
in the procHvity of his characters for deciding cases of 
conscience on grounds of equity and natural reason. As 
a lawyer he may easily have learned a certain disrespect 
-for the law in so far as it is a body of rules based upon 
♦social expediency rather than upon absolute justice. 
^"^Furthermore, he found a curious corroboration of the 
V^scholastic fatalism and rationalism of his youth in the 
' medical rationalism of Burton. All these forces, bearing 
upon a mind as earnest and as humorless as Shelley's, 
produced in Ford a disdain for vulgar orthodoxy, 
and made him a romantic rationalist in morals. After 
a generation of great dramatists had spoken, he had 
still something to say. He had to say that the essence 
of tragedy is the defeat of the ideal by the real world. 
In order to explain the idea dramatically he had to in- 
vent the problem play. If he could have supported his 



^' 



31utroDuctton Iv 



theory of tragedy by a series of such fine and effective 
illustrations as the Broken Hearty he would have made 
himself a large and secure place in literature. Unfortu- 
nately, however, his experience, judgment, and com- 
mon sense were unequal to the task. His talent was 
limited by a morbid temperament. His intellectual 
grasp was weak when he wrote Love* s Sacrifice. 
When he wrote ' Tis Pity, though every artistic faculty 
was alert, he was deserted by common-sense. 



THE TEXT 

The text here printed follows the first and only seventeenth-cen- 
tury edition, the quarto of 1633. Dyce discovered two or three 
minute differences in the copies he examined ; but there seems to 
have been no second quarto edition of any play produced by Ford 
independently. The quarto has been compared with Weber's edi- 
tion in the Dramatic Works of John ForJ^ 181 1, and with the 
. Gifford-Dyce edition in the Works of John Ford, 1895. Weber's 
notoriously defective edition was a lively provocative to accuracy in 
Giff'ord's edition of 1827. But though Gifford decisively superseded 
Weber, his own editorial work was by no means flawless, and he 
permitted himself editorial licenses no longer approved. For the 
revised edition of 1869 Dyce thoroughly overhauled Giffbrd's text, 
comparing it with various copies of the quartos, and restoring original 
readings or noting them among the variants. The 1895 edition is 
a re-issue " with further additions " [by A. H. Bullen]. There 
still remain some needless corrections, numerous expansions of col- 
loquial contractions, and changes in the stage directions. In the 
present editions variants of Gifford-Dyce (G-D) are recorded when 
they are of interest or importance to the text. 

The spelling of the quarto has been restored, except that the old 
forms of /, 5, and "v have not been retained, and obvious misprints 
— such as an n for a u — have been silently corrected. Capitaliza- 
tion and punctuation have been modernized, and commas have been 
substituted for the characteristic parentheses enclosing the nomina- 
tive of direct address. Changes or additions in the text are indicated 
by brackets or foot-notes or both. The name of each character is 
printed in tull at his first appearance in each scene, and then is 
uniformly abbreviated without reference to sporadic variations. The 
division and placing of the scenes is based on that of the Gifford- 
Dyce edition. 



TIS 

Pitty Shee $ a W hore 



Aded by the Queeves Maieflfes Ser- 
uajits^ at ^he Thanix in 




L 3^T) tNi. 

Pr/ntcd hy^J^QcholasOkes ior%chcLti 

Collim, and are to be fold at his ftop 
in PauJs Church-yard, atthc (Tgne 
ofthethTceKinsJ* 1633. 



SOURCES 

No perfectly certain source of this play has been discovered. 
Events in some respects similar to those of the tragedy are said to 
have taken place in Normandy in 1603. An account of them is 
given by the chronicler Pierre Matthieu in his Histoire de France 
et del Chosis MemorahUs . . . , published in Paris, 1606. The 
story is retold by Francois de Rosset in Lis Histoins Tragiques de 
Nostre Terr.ps. It is the titth rale in the second edition, 161 5 ; the 
seventh in the edition of 16 19. Wolrt" declares outright that Ford 
took his plot trom this source. (^See y:^-r. Fcrde eir. Njc/ij/smer 
S^uitspeare' s, page 8). But Koeppel approves Dvce's observation 
that " though Ford may probably have read it, there are no particu- 
lar resemblances between it and the play." (See Koeppel's ^uei.'er:- 
&udier., page 180 ; also, Gitiord-Dyce, Introduction, page xxx.) 

A great part of the Shakesperean influence which Wolrf at- 
tempted to trace in this play is purely imaginary. It is not difficult, 
however, to see a cerrain general likeness between Fri.ir Bonavcn- 
tura and Friar Laurence, and — to a less degree — between other 
characters of T/V Pity and Rcrr:eo ar.d yu'ii^:. 

As a possible indirect source W. Bang and H. de Vocht sug- 
gest the Ilepi ipurriKQy tt adt) ixcltwv of Parthenios of Nikaia. See 
Engiisi^e Siudier:, Band 36, pp. 392-93 (1906). 

There is a striking parallelism — hitherto, I think, unnoticed — 
between Annabella, Donado, Bergetto, and Poggio; and Isabella, 
Guardiano, the Ward, and Sordido in Middleton's ff^omer, Bczvare 
TVomer.. The resemblance is the more worth noting as the same 
element of unnatural passion enters into the intrigue oi both play$. 

In mv introduction I have discussed at some length an impres- 
sive analogue and possible source ot'Tis Pity in Speroni's dnace 
e Mac area. 



TO THE TRUELY NOBLE, 
JOHN 

EARLE OF PETERBOROUGH, LORD 

MORDANT, 

BARON OF TURVEY 

My Lord, 

Where a truth of meritt hath a generall warrant, 
there love is but a debt, acknowledgement a justice. 
Greatnesse cannot often claime virtue by inheritance ; 
yet in this, yours appeares most eminent, for that you are 
not more rightly heyre to your fortunes, then glory shalbe 
to your memory. Sweetenesse of disposition ennobles a 
freedome of birth ; in both, your lawfull interest adds 
honour to your owne name, and mercy to my presump- 
tion. Your noble allowance of these first fruites of my 
leasure in the action, emboldens my confidence of your 
as noble construction in this presentment : especially since 
my service must ever owe particular duty to your fa- 
vours, by a particular ingagement. The gravity of the sub- 
ject may easily excuse the leightnesse of the title : other- 
wise, I had beene a severe judge against mine owne guilt. 
Princes have vouchsaf't grace to trifles, offred from a 
purity of devotion ; your Lordship may likewise please to 
admit into your good opinion, with these weake endeav- 
ours, the constancy of affection from the sincere lover of 
your deserts in honour. 

JOHN FORD. 



The Sceane. 
PARMA 

THE ACTORS' NAMES. 

BoNAVENTURA, & fryar. 
A Cardinall, nuntio to the Pope. 
SoRANZo, a nobleman. 
Florio, a cittizen of Parma, 
DoNADO, another cittizen. 
Grimaldi, a Roman gentleman. 
Giovanni, sonne to Florio. 
Bergetto, nephew to Donado. 
RicHARDETTO, a suppos'd phisitian. 
Vasques, servant to Soranzo. 
PoGGio, servant to Bergetto. 
Bandetti. 

Woemen 
Annabella, daughter to Florio. 
HippoLiTA, wife to Richardetto. 
Philotis, his neece. 
PuTANA, tutresse to Annabella. 
[Officers, Attendants, Servants, &c.] 

Tie Sceane. In the quarto this page immediately follows the title- 
page. 



'€t!S pittv ^W^ a ^l^oore 



[ACTUS PRIMUS. SCENA PRIMA. 

Friar Bonaventuras cell.~^ 

Enter Fryar arid Giovanni. 
Fryar. Dispute no more In this ; for know, 

young man, 
These are no schoole-points ; nice philosophy 
May tolerate unlikely arguments. 
But heaven admits no jest; wits that presum'd 
On wit too much, — by striving how to prove 5 
There was no God, — with foolish grounds of 

art 
Discover'd first the neerest way to hell. 
And fild the world with develish atheisme : 
Such questions, youth, are fond ; for better 'tis 
To blesse the sunne then reason why it shines ; lo 
Yet hee thou talk'st of is above the sun. 
No more; I may not heare it. 

Giovanni. Gentle father. 

To you I have unclasp't my burthened soule, 
Empty'd the store-house of my thoughts and 

heart, 

Sfor, G-D, far. 



6 '®i0^0tt^ fAcTl. 

Made my selfe poore of secrets ; have not left i^ 
Another word untold, which hath not spoke 
All what I ever durst or thinke or know ; 
And yet is here the comfort I shall have, 
Must I not doe what all men else may, — love? 

Fry, Yes, you may love, faire sonne. 

Gio. Must I not praise ao 

That beauty which, if fram*d a new, the gods 
Would make a god of, if they had it there, 
And kneele to it, as I doe kneele to them? 

Fry. Why, foolish madman, — 

Gio. Shall a peevish sound, 

A customary forme, from man to man, 25 

Of brother and of sister, be a barre 
Twixt my perpetuall happinesse and mee ? 
Say that we had one father, say one wombe — 
Curse to my joyes — gave both us life and birth ; 
Are wee not therefore each to other bound 30 

So much the more by nature, by the links 
Of blood, of reason, — nay, if you will hav't, — 
Even of religion, to be ever one. 
One soule, one flesh, one love, one heart, one 
all? 

Fry. Have done, unhappy youth, for thou art 
lost. 35 

Gio. Shall, then, for that I am her brother 
borne, 
My joyes be ever banisht from her bed ? 



Scene I.] '^isi ^it^ 7 

No, father ; in your eyes I see the change 

Of pitty and compassion ; from your age, 

As from a sacred oracle, distills 40 

The life of counsell : tell mee, holy man, 

What cure shall give me ease in these extreames. 

Fry. Repentance, sonne, and sorrow for this 
sinne : 
For thou hast mov'd a Majesty above 
With thy un-raunged almost blasphemy. 45 

Gio. O, doe not speake of that, deare con- 
fessor ! 

Fry. Art thou, my sonne, that miracle of wit 
Who once, within these three moneths, wert 

esteem'd 
A wonder of thine age throughout Bononia ? 
How did the University applaud 50 

Thy goverment, behaviour, learning, speech, 
Sweetnesse, and all that could make up a man ! 
I was proud of my tutellage, and chose 
Rather to leave my bookes then part with thee; 
I did so : but the fruites of all my hopes 55 

Are lost in thee, as thou art in thy selfe. 
O, Giovanni 1 hast thou left the schooles 
Of knowledge to converse with lust and death? 
For death waites on thy lust. Looke through 

the world. 
And thou shalt see a thousand faces shine 60 

More glorious then this idoll thou ador'st : 



8 '®i0pit^ [Act I. 

Leave her, and take thy choyce, *tls much lesse 

sinne ; 
Though in such games as those, they lose that 

winne. 
Gio. It were more ease to stop the ocean 
From floates and ebbs then to disswade my 

vowes. 65 

Fry. Then I have done, and in thy wilful! 

flames 
Already see thy ruine ; heaven is just, 
Yet heare my counsell. 

Gio. As a voyce of life. 

Fry. Hye to thy fathers house, there locke 

thee fast 
Alone within thy chamber, then fall downe 70 

On both thy knees, and grovell on the ground : 
Cry to thy heart, wash every word thou utter'st 
In teares, — and if't bee possible, — of blood : 
Begge heaven to cleanse the leprosie of lust 
That rots thy soule, acknowledge what thou art, 75 
A wretch,a worme, a nothing: weepe, sigh, pray 
Three times a day and three times every night : 
For seven dayes space doe this ; then if thou 

iind'st 
No change in thy desires, returne to me : 
rie thinke on remedy. Pray for thy selfe 80 

At home, whil'st I pray for thee here. Away ! 
My blessing with thee. Wee have neede to pray ! 



Scene II.] *^i& pft^ 9 

Gio. All this rie doe, to free mee from the rod 
Of vengeance ; else I'lesweare my fate's my god. 

Exeunt, 

[SCENA SECUNDA. 
The street before Florws house.l 

Enter Grimaldi and Vasques ready to fight. 

Vasques. Come, sir, stand to your tackling ; if 
you prove craven. Tie make you run quickly. 

Grimaldi. Thou art no equall match for mee. 

Vas. Indeed, I never went to the warres to 
bring home newes ; nor cannot play the moun- 5 
tibanke for a meales meate, and sweare I got my 
wounds in the field. See you these gray haires ? 
They'le not flinch for a bloody nose. Wilt thou 
to this geere ? 

Gri. Why, slave, think'st thou I'le ballance 10 
my reputation with a cast-suite .'* Call thy mais- 
ter ; he shall know that I dare — 

Vas. Scold like a cot-queane, — that's your 
profession. Thou poore shaddow of a souldier, 
I will make thee know my maister keepes ser- 15 
vants thy betters in quality and performance. 
Com'st thou to fight or prate ? 

Gri. Neither, with thee ; I am a Romane 
and a gentleman, one that have got mine honour 
with expence of blood. ao 

Vas. You are a lying coward and a foole! 

18—20 Neither , , . blood. ^ prints as verse. 



IG 'tl^i&^it^ [Act I. 

Fight, or, by these hilts, I'le kill thee, — brave 
my lord ! — you'le fight. 

Gri. Provoake me not, for If thou dost — 
f^as. Have at you ! 

Tbey fight ; Grim a I, hath the worst. 
Enter Florioy Donado, Soranxo. 
Florio. What meaned these sudden broyles so 
neare my dores ? 
Have you not other places but my house 
To vent the spleene of your disordered bloods ? 
Must I be haunted still with such;unrest 
As not to eate or sleepe in peace at home ? 
Is this your love, Grimaldi ? Fie, 't is naught. 
Donado. And, Vasques, I may tell thee, 'tis 
not well 
To broach these quarrels; you are ever for- 
ward 
In seconding contentions. 

Enter above Annabella and Putana. 
Flo. What's the ground ? 

Soranxo. That, with your patience, signiors, 
I'le resolve : 
This gentleman, whom fame reports a soul- 

dier, — 
For else I know not, — rivals mee in love 
To Signior Florio's daughter; to whose eares 
He still preferrs his suite to my disgrace, 

25 mtantd. G-D, mean. 



scENt II.] 'tETig pit^ 1 1 

Thinking the way to recommend himselfe 

Is to disparage me in his report : 40 

But know, Grimaldi, though, may be, thou art 

My equall in thy blood, yet this bewrayes 

A lownesse in thy mindej which, wer't thou 

noble, 
Thou would'st as much disdaine as I doe thee 
For this unworthinesse ; and on this ground 45 
I will'd my servant to correct his tongue. 
Holding a man so base no match for me. 

Fas. And had [not] your sudd[en] comming 
prevented us, I had let my gentleman blood un- 
der the gilles ; I should have worm'd you, sir, for 50 
running madde. 

Gri. He be reveng'd, Soranzo. 

Vas. On a dish of warme-broth to stay your 
stomack — doe, honest innocence, doe! Spone- 
meat is a wholesomer dyet then a Spannish blade. 55 

Gri. Remember this ! 

Sor, I feare thee not, Grimaldi. 

Ex, Gri. 

Flo. My Lord Soranzo, this is strange to me, 
Why you should storme, having my word en- 

Owing her heart, what neede you doubt her 

eare ? 
Loosers may talke by law of any game. 60 

46 his. Q, this. 48 sudden. Q, sudda ne. 



12 '®i0|Bit^ [Act I. 

Vas. Yet thevillaine of words, Signior Florio, 
maybe such as would make any unspleen'd dove 
chollerick; blame not my lord in this. 

Flo. Be you more silent ; 
I would not for my wealth, my daughters love 65 
Should cause the spilling of one drop of blood. 
Vasques, put up ; let's end this fray in wine. 

Exeunt. 

Putana. How like you this, child ? Here's 
threatning, challenging, quarrelling, and fighting 
on every side, and all is for your sake; you had 70 
neede looke to your selfe, chardge ; you'le be 
stolne away sleeping else shortly. 

Annahella. But, tutresse, such a life gives no 
content 
To me; my thoughts are fixt on other ends. 
Would you would leave me! 75 

Put. Leave you? No marvaile else; leave me 
no leaving, chardge. This is love outright. In- 
deede, I blame you not ; you have choyce fit for 
the best lady in Italy. 

Anna. Pray doe not talke so much. 80 

Put. Take the worst with the best, there's Gri- 
maldi the souldier, a very well-timbred fellow; 
they say he is a Roman, nephew to the Duke 
Mount Ferratto ; they say he did good service in 
the warrs against the Millanoys ; but, faith, 85 
chardge, I doe not like him, and be for nothing 

61-3 Q prints as verse. 



Scene II.] '([1^10 plt^ 1 3 

but for being a souldier: one amongst twenty 
of your skirmishing captaines but have some 
pryvie mayme or other that marres their stand- 
ing upright. I h'ke him the worse, hee crinckles 90 
so much in the hams; though hee might serve 
if their were no more men, — yet hee's not the 
man I would choose. 

Anna. Fye, how thou prat*st ! 

Put. As I am a very woman, I like Signiour 95 
Soranzo well : hee is wise, and what is more, 
rich ; and what Is more then that, kind ; and 
what is more then all this, a noble-man; such a 
one, were I the faire Annabella my selfe, I 
would wish and pray for. Then hee is bounti-ioo 
full; besides, hee is handsome, and, by my troth, 
I thinke, wholsome — and that's newes in a 
gallant of three and twenty ; liberall, that I know ; 
loving, that you know ; and a man sure, else hee 
could never ha' purchast such a good name with 105 
Hippolita, the lustie widdow, in her husbands 
life time. And 'twere but for that report, sweet 
heart, would 'a were thine I Commend a man 
for his qualities, but take a husband as he is a 
plaine-sufficient, naked man: such a one is for no 
your bed, and such a one is Signior Soranzo, my 
life for't. 

Anna. Sure the woman tooke her mornings 
draught to soone. 



14 'tlTi^Pit^ [Act I. 

Enter Bergetto and Poggio. 

Put. But looke, sweet heart, looke what thinge 1 1 5 
comes now ! Here's another of your cyphers to 
fill up the number: Oh, brave old ape in a 
silken coate ! Observe. 

Ber. Dids't thou thinke, Poggio, that I would 
spoyle my new cloathes, and leave my dinner to no 
fight? 

Pog. No, sir, I did not take you for so arrant 
a babie. 

Ber. I am wyser then so : for I hope, Poggio, 
thou never heard'st of an elder brother that was 125 
a coxcomb; dids't, Poggio? 

Pog. Never, indeede, sir, as long as they had 
either land or mony left them to inherit. 

Ber. Is it possible, Poggio ? Oh, monstruous ! 
Why, He undertake with a handfull of silver to 130 
buy a headfull of wit at any tyme : but, sirrah, 
I have another purchase in hand. I shall have 
the wench, myne unckle sayes. I will but wash 
my face, and shift socks, and then have at her, 
yfaith . . . Marke my pace, Poggio ! 135 

Pog. Sir, I have scene an asse and a mule trot 
the Spannish pavin with a better grace, I know 
not how often. Exeunt. 

Anna. This ideot haunts me too. 

Put. I, I, he needes no discription. The rich 140 
magnifico that is below with your father, chardge, 



Scene II.] '^10 JDlt^ 1$ 

Signior Donado his unckle, for that he meanes 
to make this, his cozen, a golden calfe, thinkes 
that you wil be a right Isralite, and fall downe 
to him presently : but I hope I have tuterd you 145 
better. They say a fooles bable is a ladies play- 
fellow; yet you, having wealth enough, you 
neede not cast upon the dearth of flesh at any 
rate. Hang him, innocent ! 

Enter Giovanni. 

Anna. But see, Putana, see ! What blessed 
shape 150 

Of some caelestiall creature now appeares ! 
What man is hee that with such sad aspect 
Walkes carelesse of him selfe ? 

Put, Where ? 

Anna. Looke below. 

Put. Oh, 'tis your brother, sweet. 

Anna. Ha ! 

Put. *Tis your brother. 

Anna. Sure 'tis not hee ; this is some woefull 
thinge 155 

Wrapt up in griefe, some shaddow of a man. 
Alas, hee beats his brest, and wipes his eyes, 
Drown'd all in teares : me thinkes I heare him sigh. 
Lets downe, Putana, and pertake the cause. 
I know my brother in the love he beares me 160 
Will not denye me partage in his sadnesse — 
My soule is full of heavinesse and feare. 

Extt \_above with Putana^ , 



l6 '®i0pit^ [Act I. 

[SCENA TERTIA. 

A hall in Florw s house,'\ 

Giovanni. Lost ! I am lost ! my fates have 
doom'd my death: 
The more I strive, I love; the more I love, 
The lesse I hope : I see my ruine certaine. 
What judgement or endevors could apply 
To my incurable and restlesse wounds, 5 

I throughly have examin'd, but in vaine. 

that it were not in religion sinne 

To make our love a god, and worship it! 

1 have even wearied heaven with prayers, dryed 

up 
The spring of my continuall teares, even sterv'd 10 
My veines with dayly fasts : what wit or art 
Could counsaile, I have practiz'd; but, alas, 
I find all these but dreames and old mens 

tales 
To fright unsteedy youth; Fme still the same: 
Or I must speake or burst; tis not, I know, 15 
My lust, but 'tis my fate that leads me on. 
Keepe feare and low faint hearted shame with 

slaves ! 
rie tell her that I love her, though my heart 
Were rated at the price of that attempt. 
Oh me! she comes. 



Scene II.] '®tlfif pit^ 1 7 

Enter Anna, and Put an a. 

Annahella. Brother ! 

Gio. \aside\. If such a thing 20 

As courage dwell in men, yee heavenly powers, 
Now double all that virtue in my tongue ! 

Anna. Why, brother, 
Will you not speake to me? 

Gio. Yes: how d'ee, sister? 

Anna. Howsoever I am, me thinks you are 

not well. 25 

Putana. Blesse us ! why are you so sad, sir ? 

Gio. Let me intreat you, leave us awhile, 
Putana. 

Sister, I would be pryvate with you. 

Anna. With-drawe, Putana. 

Put. I will. — \_Aside.~\ If this were any 30 
other company for her, I should thinke my ab- 
sence an office of some credit ; but I will leave 
them together. Exit Putana. 

Gio. Come, sister, lend your hand : let's walke 
together. 
I hope you neede not blush to walke with mee; 35 
Here's none but you and I. 

Anna, How's this ? 

Gio, Faith, 

I meane no harme. 

Anna. Harme ? 

Gio. No, good faith. 

How is't with 'ee? 



1 8 '®i0pit^ [Act I. 

Anna. I trust hee be not franticke — 

I am very well, brother. 

Gio. Trust me, but I am sicke : I feare so 
sick ^o 

'Twill cost my life. 

Anna. Mercy forbid itj 'tis not so, I hope. 

Gio. I thinke you love me, sister. 

Anna. Yes, you know 

I doe. 

Gio. I know't, indeed — y'are very faire. 

Anna. Nay, then, I see you have a merry 

sicknesse. .. 

Gio. That's as it proves : the poets faigne, I 
read, 
That Juno for her forehead did exceede 
All other goddesses ; but I durst sweare 
Your forehead exceeds hers, as hers did theirs. 

Anna. Troth, this Is pretty ! 

Gio. Such a paire of starres 50 

As are thine eyes would, like Promethean fire. 
If gently glaun'st, give life to senselesse stones. 

Anna. Fie upon 'ee ! 

Gio. The lilly and the rose, most sweetly 
strainge. 
Upon your dimpled cheekes doe strive for 

change. 55 

44 / doe. Q prints with line above. 

46 the. Q, they. 49 thein. G, theirs. D, their. 



Scene III.] 'tE^lg ^{t^ 1 9 

Such lippes would tempt a saint ; such hands as 

those 
Would make an anchoret lascivious. 

Anna. D'ee mock mee or flatter mee ? 

Gio. If you would see a beauty more exact 
Then art can counter^t or nature frame, 60 

Looke in your glasse, and there behold your 
owne. 

Anna. O, you are a trime youth. 

Gio. Here ! Offers his dagger to her, 

Anna. What to doe ? 

Gio. And here's my breast ; strike home ! 
Rip up my bosome ; there thou shalt behold 
A heart in which is writ the truth I speake. 65 
Why stand 'ee? 

Anna. Are you earnest ? 

Gio. Yes, most earnest. 

You cannot love? 

Anna, Whom? 

Gio, Me I My tortured soule 

Hath felt affliction In the heate of death — 
O Annabella, I am quite undone ! 
The love of thee, my sister, and the view 7© 

Of thy immortall beauty hath untun'd 
All harmony both of my rest and life. 
Why d'ee not strike? 

63 itrlke. Q, strick. 



20 'ari0|Dit^ [Act I. 

Jnna. Forbid it, my just feares ! 

If this be true, 'twere fitter I were dead. 

Gio. True, Annabella; 'tis no time to jest. 75 
I have too long supprest the hidden flames 
That ahnost have consum'd me : I have spent 
Many a silent night in sighes and groanes. 
Ran over all my thoughts, despis'd my fate, 
Reason'd against the reasons of my love, 80 

Done all that smooth'd-cheeke vertue could 

advise ; 
But found all bootelesse : 'tis my destiny 
That you must eyther love, or I must dye. 

Anna. Comes this in sadnesse from you ? 

Gio. Let some mischiefe 

Befall me soone, if I dissemble ought. gj 

Anna. You are my brother, Giovanni. 

Gio. You, 

My sister Annabella; I know this. 
And could afford you instance why to love 
So much the more for this; to which intent 
Wise nature first in your creation ment 90 

To make you mine ; else't had beene sinne and 

fo ule 
To share one beauty to a double soule. 
Neerenesse in birth or blood doth but perswade 
A neerer neerenesse in affection. 
I have askt counsell of the holy church, 95 

81 imootJi" d-chceke. Altered by G to smooth-chcek'd. 
93 or. G-D, and. 



SctNE TIT.l '^10 |iit^ 21 

Who tells mee I may love you ; and 'tis just 
That, since I may, I should; and will, yes, 

will ! 
Must I now live or dye ? 

Anna. Live; thou hast wonne 

The field, and never fought ; what thou hast 

urg'd 
My captive heart had long agoe resolv'd. loo 

I blush to tell thee, — but I'le tell thee now, — 
For every sigh that thou hast spent for me 
I have sigh'd ten ; for every teare shed twenty : 
And not so much for that I lov'd, as that 
I durst not say I lov'd, nor scarcely thinlce it. 105 

Gio. Let not this musicke be a dreame, yee 
gods. 
For pittie's-sake, I begge 'ee. 

Anna. On my knees, ^^ee kneeles. 

Brother, even by our mothers dust, I charge 

you, 
Doe not betray mee to your mirth or hate : 
Love mee or kill me, brother. 

Gio. On my knees. He kneeles. no 

Sister, even by my mothers dust, I charge you, 
Doe not betray mee to your mirth or hate : 
Love mee or kill mee, sister. 

Anna. You meane good sooth, then ? 

Gio. In good troth, I doe ; 

And so doe you, 1 hope: say, I'm in earnest. 115 



22 '^i&^it^ [Act I. 

Jnna. Pie swear't, and I. 
Gio. And I ; and by this kisse, — 

Kisses her. 
Once more ! yet once more ! now let's rise, • — 

by this, 
I would not change this minute for Elyzium. 
What must we now doe? 

Jnna. What you will. 

Gio, Come, then; 

After so many teares as wee have wept, 120 

Let's learne to court in smiles, to kisse and 
sleepe. Exeutit. 

[SCENA QUARTA. J street, 1 

Enter Florio and Donado. 
Florio. Signior Donado, you have sayd 
enough — 
I understand you ; but would have you know 
I will not force my daughter 'gainst her will. 
You see I have but two, a sonne and her; 
And hee is so devoted to his booke, 5 

As I must tell you true, I doubt his health : 
Should he miscarry, all my hopes rely 
Upon my girle. As for worldly fortune, 
I am, I thanke my starres, blest with enough. 
My care is how to match her to her liking : 10 

116 rU iiuearUy and I. G-D, I'll swear it, I. 



Scene IV.) '^ifif pit^ 23 

I would not have her marry wealth, but love ; 
And if she like your nephew, let him have her. 
Here's all that I can say. 

Donado. Sir, you say well. 

Like a true father; and, for my part, I, 
If the young folkes can like, — twixt you and 

me, — 15 

Will promise to assure my nephew presently 
Three thousand florrens yeerely during life. 
And after I am dead my whole estate. 

Flo, 'Tis a faire proffer, sir, meane time your 

nephew 
Shall have free passage to commence his suite: 20 
If hee can thrive, hee shall have my consent. 
So for this time Tie leave you, signior. Exit. 
Do. Well, 

Here's hope yet, if my nephew would have 

wit; 
But hee is such another dunce, I feare 
Hee'le never winne the wench. When I was 

young, ^ ^3 

I could have done*t, yfaith ; and so shall hee. 
If hee will learne of mee; and, in good time, 
Hee comes himselfe. 

Enter Bergetto and Poggio. 
How now, Bergetto, whether away so fast ? 

Bergetto. Oh, unkle, I have heard the strangest 30 

29 How now . . .fait? (^ gives this to Poggio. 



24 'Win pitV' [Act L 

newes that ever came out of the mynt I Have I 
not, Poggio ? 

Poggio. Yes, indeede, sir. 

Do, What newes, Bergetto ? 

Ber. Why, looke yee, unkle, my barber told 35 
me just now that there is a fellow come to 
towne who undertakes to make a mill goe with- 
out the mortall helpe of any water or winde, 
onely with sand-bags : and this fellow hath a 
strange horse, a most excellent beast, I'le assure 40 
you, uncle, my barber sayes, whose head to the 
wonder of all Christian people, stands just be- 
hind where his tayle is — is 't not true, Poggio ? 

Pog. So the barber swore, forsooth. 

Do. And you are running [t] hither? 45 

Ber. I, forsooth, unkle. 

Do. Wilt thou be a foole stil ? Come, sir, 
you shall not goe. You have more mind of a 
puppet-play then on the businesse I told y'ee. 
Why, thou great baby, wu't never have wit ? 50 
Wu't make thy selfe a May-game to all the 
world? 

Pag. Answere for your sclfe, maister. 

Ber. Why, unkle, shu'd 1 sit at home still, 
and not goe abroad to see fashions like other 55 
gallants ? 

Do. To see hobby-horses ! What wise talke, 

45 ['] supplied by G-D. 



Scene 1V.| '^10 |9itl? 25 

I pray, had you with Annahclla, when you were 
at Signior Florio's house ? 

/^er. Oh, the wench ! Uds sa' me, unkle, J 60 
tickled her with a rare speech, that 1 made her 
almost hurst her belly with laughing. 

Do. Nay, I thinke so; and what speech 
was't ? 

Ber. What did I say, Poggio ? 65 

Pog. Forsooth, my maister said, that hec loved 
her almost as well as hee loved parmasent, and 
swore — rie be sworne for him — that shee 
wanted but such a nose as his was, to be as 
pretty a young woeman as any was in Parma. 70 

Do. Oh, grose! 

Ber. Nay, unkle, — then shee ask't mec 
whether my father had any more children then 
my selfe ; and I sayd "No, 'twere better hee 
should have had his braynes knockt out first." 75 

Do. This is intolerable. 

Ber. Then sayd shee, " Will Signior Donado, 
your unkle, leave you all his wealth?" 

Do, Ha ! that was good — did she harpe upon 
that string? j^o 

Ber. Did she harpe upon that string? I, that 
she did. 1 answered," Leave me all his wealth? 
Why, woeman, hee hath no other wit; if hee 
had, he should hearc on't to his everlasting glory 
and confusion. 1 know," quoth 1,"1 am his 85 



26 'tBiapit]! (Act I. 

white boy, and will not be guld.** And with that 
she fell into a great smile, and went away. Nay, 
I did lit her! 

Do. Ah, sirrah, then I see there is no changing 
of nature. Well, Bcrgetto, I feare thou wilt be 90 
a very asse still. 

Bt'r. I should be sorry for that, unkle. 

Do. Come, come you home with me : since 
you are no better a speaker, I'le have you write 
to her after some courtly manner, and inclose 95 
some rich jcwcll in the letter. 

Ber. I, marry, that will be excellent. 

Do. Peace, innocent ! 
Once in my time I'le set my wits to schoole ; 
If all faile, 'tis but the fortune of a foole. 100 

Ber. Poggio, 'twill doe, Poggio. Exeunt. 






ACTUS SKCUNDUS. [SCENA PRIMA.] 

[An apartment in Florw s house ^ 
Enter Giovanni and Annabel/a as from their chamber. 

Giovanni. Come, Annabclla, — no more sis- 
ter now, 
But love, a name more gracious, — doe not 

blush, 
Beauties sweete wonder, but be proud to know 
That yeeldingthou hast conquer*d,and inflam'd 
A heart whose tribute is thy brothers life. 5 

Annabella. And mine is his! Oh, how these 
stolne contents 
Would print a modest crymson on my cheekes, 
Had any but my hearts delight prevail'd ! 

Gio, 1 marvaile why the chaster of your sex') (^k \c 
Should thinke this pretty toye calTd maiden-head ^ *^ l 
So strange a losse, when, being lost, 'tis nothing, \ 

And you are still the same. . 

Anna. 'Tis well for you ; ^ 

Now you can talke. 

Gw. Musickc aswell consists 

In th' eare as in the playing. 

Anna. Oh, y'are wanton ! 

Tell on't, y'are best ; doe. 

14 y^ are. G-D, you're. 



28 >(rt«< pirv (A^vu. 

Kissc n^c — - SO ! 'Duis \\\i\\i\ \o\c on \ .t\\.i\ 

ncckc, 
Auvl swck't di\ uu' .nnlMosi.i (u>iu Ium hps. 
1 cMuv uoi tlir luiohticst xw.xu a\\\ c \ 
Hut hv^Ki mv scltV, in bcMiii; kmi\ ot tl)cc\ 
!\loir c.JT.i( th.ui wore 1 king ot all thr woiM. lo 
Hut I sli.iU lose you, swcct-hcari. 

.fft*t,:. init \ vMi shall uv^t ' 

(yV^. You tuust be inariu\l, nustirs 
.Inmi. ^ rs, to wIumw? 

Ct/#. Sv>tuc v>nc iwust \\.\\ c vou. 
Annn* ^ ou must. 

Gi<. Nav, sonu' other. 

/•:•;.;, Now, piitlu'c, do not spcakc Sv> , with- 
vHlt jcstiuvv 
^ ou'lc luakc luc wccpr in cMrt\rst. j 

Ct;>. \\ hat, \ ou will not! 45 ! 

Hut tell \\\Cy swcote, oans't thou be daiM to 

swcarc 
That thou wilt li\c tv"> lurr, aiul to uo other? 
Ann,: Hv both v>ui Km es I ilaic; tor didst 
thvHi know, 
Mv Ciunanni, how all sinters sccn\c 
'Vo my eyes hatetuU, thou wouKlst trust mee then. 30 

tft TVn muit A* mtrriHt^ mistrts. }^ ymm y>\\ lit\c abort. 

*«-3 IVj . . > i^nHy^m. JJ prints on one lino. 

«X !*• awjf. Crr». Ntty, ttmt i^itr <J ptintii on one line. 



r/KJHt parr. , 

Utrntzftihrr wU'4t thou /oy/''.;f, k':':{>': -//'W xu-f 

heart. 
/Jnna. W/II you bc^on ? 

/Inna. Wh/m to n-Aiirnf,^ 

(iio. S'>o/ic. 

/Jrina. i^Ofjlc': -j'tM A'>*:. 

(tio . f a r ': v/ ': I ! . /f;^'//. 

/Inna. ( i<,'- y/h' r*: thou wilt, In rrjinrj J']': kcfrjx: 

th'-': fi';r':, 55 

And whcf*: rhoij ;4rf. J know 1 »»ha]J be tbrrrc. 
( iti-^r(\inii ' 

/;/if/^-r I' u tana, 

I'utana f ^luld, hoy/ ii»'t,chiJd ? Wcll,thanke 
hravcn, ha ' 

/Inna. () ^/uarrlj'an, what a paradj-.r: of joy 
Hav: J pa'-jf over ' 40 

/''«/. Nay, what a parddh*: of joy hav: you 
p^i'J tjfifjrr' W}]y no// 1 cornmfrnd th<:e, 
< \\'Au\'.rr, \- rMr<: nofliin;/, Hwcctc-hcart, what 
ihou;/h hcf: be your l^rothcr: your brothcr'v, a 
man, I hope, and J nay still, j'f a younj.^ wench 45 
fccic the fitt upon her, let her take any body 
father or brother, all is one. 

33 4 fVill you he^onf (itu. I mutt nakr* our lln/: </f Q i 
IVhen 10 returntt (it't. :iof,n«. ^luAiierj nitd ly/oh j6u (Ue. do. 



30 '^ifii ipit^ [Act II. 

Anna. I would not have it knowne for all the 
world. 

Put. Nor 1, indeed, for the speech of the peo- 
ple ; else 'twere nothing. 

Florio {ivithin). Daughter Annabella! 

Anna. O niee ! my father. — Here, sir ! — 
Reach my worke. 

Flo. {withiTi). What are you doeing ? 

Anna. So, let him come now. 

Enter Florio^ Richardetto like a Doctor of Phisicke, 
and Philotis zvith a lute in her hand. 

Flo, So hard at worke ! that's well ; you lose 
no time 
Looke, I have brought you company ; here's one 55 
A learned doctor, lately come from Padua, 
Much skild in physicke ; and, for that I see 
You have of late beene sickly, I entreated 
This reverent man to visit you some time. 

Anna. Y'are very welcome, sir. 

Richardetto. I thanke you, mistresse. 60 

Loud fame in large report hath spoke your praise 
Aswell for vertue as perfection : 
For which I have beene bold to bring with mee 
A kins-woeman of mine, a maide, for song 
And musicke one perhaps will give content. 65 
Please you to know her. 

Anna. They are parts I love. 

And shec for them most welcome. 



Scene I.) 'tlTl^ ^it^ 3 1 

Philotis. Thanke you, lady. 

Flo. Sir, now you know my house, pray make 
not strange ; 
And if you findc my daughter necde your art, 
I'le be your pay-master. 

Rich. Sir, what I am 70 

Shee shall command. 

Flo. You shall bind me to you. 

Daughter, I must have conference with you 
About some matters that concernes us both. 
Good Maister Doctor, please you but walke in, 
Wec'le crave a little of your cozens cunning : 75 
I thinke my girle hath not quite forgot 
To touch an instrument; she could have don't: 
Wee'le heare them both. 

Rich, V\^ waite upon you, sir. Exeunt. 

[SCENA SECUNDA.] 

Enter Soranzo in his study reading a booke. 
'^Soran'z.o^ Loves measure is extreame.^ the com- 
fort paine^ 
The life unrest^ and the reward disdaine. 
What's here ? lookt o're again. 'Tis so ; so writes 
This smooth licentious poet in his rymes. 
But, Sanazar, thou lyest; for had thy bosome r 
Felt such oppression as is laid on mine, 

70-1 6'/> . . . command. Q prints as one line. 



32 'art0 pitr i^^ "• 

Thou woiildst have kist the rod that made the 

smart. 
To worke, then, happy Muse, and contradict 
What Sanazer hath in his envy writ. 

Loves measure is the meane^ sweet his annoy es^ lo 
His pleasuyes life^ and his mvard all joy cs. 

Had Annabella liv'd when Sanazar 
I^id in his briefe Encomium celebrate 
Venice, that queene ot citties, he had left 
That verse which gaind him such a summc of 

gold, 15 

And for one onelv looke from Annabell 
Had writ of her and her diviner cheekes. 
O, how my thoughts are — 

f\jsques {icithi?i). Pray, forbeare ; in rules of 
civility, let me give notice on't : I shall be tax't io 
of my neglect of duty and service. 

Soran. What rude intrusion interrupts my 
peace ? 
Can I be no where private ? 

Fas. {ivithin). IVoth, you wrong your modesty. 

Soran. What's the matter, Vasques ? who is't ? 
Enter Hippo lit a and Vasques. 

HippoUta. *Tis 1 : 15 

Doe you know mee now ? Looke, perjurd man, 
on her 

7 the smart. G-D, the [o] smart. 
13 Encomium. <^, Euconium. 



scENKii.i 'tE^i0jBit^ 33 

Whom thou and thy distracted lust have wrong'd. 
Thy sensuall rage of blood hath made my youth 
A scorne to men and angels ; and shall I 
Be now a foyle to thy un sated change ? 30 

Thou knowst, false wanton, when my modest 

fame 
Stood free from staineor scandall, all the charmes 
Of hell or sorcery could not prevaile 
Against the honour of my chaster bosome. 
Thyne eyes did pleade in teares, thy tongue in 

oathes, 35 

Such and so many that a heart of Steele 
Would have beene wrought to pitty, as was mine : 
And shall the conquest of my lawfull bed, 
My husbands death, urg'd on by his disgrace, 
My losse of woeman-hood, be ill rewarded 40 

With hatred and contempt ? No ; know, Soranzo, 
I have a spirit doth as much distast 
The slavery of fearing thee, as thou 
Dost loath the memory of what hath past. 
Srjran. Nay, deare Hippolita, — 
Hip. Call me not deare, 45 

Nor thinke with supple words to smooth the 

grosenesse 
Of my abuses. 'Tis not your new mistresse, 
Your goodly Madam Merchant, shall triumph 
On my dejection ; tell her thus from mee. 
My byrth was nobler and by much more free. 50 



34 'GTififJDit^ (Act II. 

Soran, You are too violent. 

Hip. You are too double 

In your dissimulation. See'st thou this, 
This habit, these blacke mourning weedes of 

care ? 
'Tis thou art cause of this, and hast divorc't 
My husband from his life, and me from him, 55 
And made me widdow in my widdow-hood. 

Soran. Will you yet heare ? 

Hip. More of the perjuries ? 

Thy soule is drown'd too deepely in those 

sinnes ; 
Thou needs't not add to th' number. 

Soran» Then I'le leave you. 

You are past all rules of sence. 

Hip. And thou of grace. 60 

Vasques. Fy, mistresse, you are not neere the 
limits of reason : if my lord had a resolution as 
noble as vertue it selfe, you take the course to 
unedge it all. Sir, I beseech you, doe not per- 
plexe her ; griefes, alas, will have a vent : I dare 65 
undertake Madam Hippolita will now freely 
heare you. 

Soran. Talke to a woman frantick ! — Are 
these the fruits of your love ? 

Hip. They are the fruites of thy untruth, false 
man ! 70 

57 the. G-D, thy. 



Scene II.] 'tH^i^ ^It^ 35 

Didst thou not sweare, whil'st yet my husband 

liv'd, 
That thou wouldst wish no happinesse on earth 
More then to call me wife ? Didst thou not vow 
When hee should dye to marry mee ? — for which 
The devill in my blood, and thy protests, 75 

Caus'd mee to counsaile him to undertake 
A voyage to Ligorne, for that we heard 
His brother there was dead and left a daughter 
Young and unfriended, who, with much adoe, 
I wish't him to bring hither. He did so, go 

And went ; and, as thou know*st, dyed on the 

way. 
Unhappy man, to buy his death so deare. 
With my advice ! Yet thou, for whom I did it, 
Forget'st thy vowes, and leav'st me to my shame. 

Soran. Who could helpe this ? 

Hip. Who! perjur'd man, thou couldst, 85 

If thou hadst faith or love. 

Soran. You are deceived : 

The vowes I made, if you remember well. 
Were wicked and unlawfull ; 'twere more sinne 
To keepe them then to breake them: as for mee 
I cannot maske my penitence. Thinke thou 9° 
How much thou hast digrest from honest shame 
In bringing of a gentleman to death 
Who was thy husband ; such a one as hee, 
So noble in his quality, condition, 



36 '3ri0 Pit^ [Act II. 

Learning, behaviour, entertainment, love, 95 

As Parma could not shew a braver man. 

Fas. You doe not well j this was not your 
promise. 

Soran. I care not ; let her know her mon- 
struous life. 
Ere rie be servile to so blacke a sinne, 
rie be a curse. Woeman, come here no more; 100 
Learne to repent and dye ; for, by my honour, 
I hate thee and thy lust: you have beene too 
foule. [^Av/.] 

Vns. This part has beene scurvily playd. 

Hip. How foolishly this beast contemnes his 
fate. 
And shuns the use of that which I more scorneio5 
Then I once lov'd, his love ! But let him goe ; 
My vengeance shall give comfort to his woe. 

She offers to goe away. 

Fas. Mistresse, Mistresse, Madam Hippolita ! 
pray, a word or two. 

Hip. With mee, sir? no 

Fas. With you, if you please. 

Hip. What is't ? 

Fas. I know you are infinitely mov*d now, 
and you thinke you have cause : some I confesse 
you have, but sure not so much as you imagine. 115 

Hip. Indeed ! 

Fas. O you were miserably bitter, which you 



SCTNrii.i 'tn^is^pit^ 37 

followed even to the last sillahle. Faith, you 
were somewhat too shrewd ; by my life, you 
could not have tooke my lord in a worse time 120 
since I first knew h?m ; to morrow you shall 
findc him a new man. 

Hip. Well, 1 shall waite his leasurc. 

l^as. Fie, this is not a hearty patience ; it 
comes sowerly from you : troth, let me perswadei25 
you for once. 

Hip. ]^aside]^. I have it, and it shall be so; 
thanks, opportunity ! — Perswade me to what? 

l^as. Visitt him in some milder temper. 0,if 
you could but master a little yourfemall spleen, 130 
how might you winne him ! 

Hip. Hec wil never love me. Vasfjues, thou 
hast bin a too trusty servant to such a master, 
and I beleeve thy reward in the end wil fal [I] 
out like mine. 135 

l^as. So, perhaps, too. 

Hip. Resolve thy selfe it will. Had I one so 
true, so truely honest, so secret to my counsels, 
as thou hast bcene to him and his, I should 
thinke it a slight acquittance, not onely to make 140 
him maister of all I have, but even of my selfe. 

f^as. O, you are a noble gentlewoman. 

Hip. Wu't thou feede alwayes upon hopes? 
Well, I know thou art wise, and see'st the re- 
ward of an old servant daily, what it is. 145 



38 'tBi&^it^ [Act II. 

jTas. Beggery and neglect. 

Hip. True; but, Vasques, wer't thou mine, 
and wouldst bee private to me and my designes, 
I here protest my selfe and all what I can else 
call myne should be at thy dispose. 150 

Fas. [aside^ . Worke you that way, old moule ? 
then I have the wind of you. — I were not 
worthy of it by any desert that could lye — 
within my compasse; if I could — 

Hip. What then? 155 

Fas. I should then hope to live in these my 
old yeares with rest and security. 

Hip. Give me thy hand : now promise but 
thy silence. 
And helpe to bring to passe a plot I have, 
And here in sight of heaven, that being done, 160 
I make thee lord of mee and mine estate. 

Fas. Come, you are merry ; this is such a 
happinesse that I can neither thinke or beleeve. 

Hip. Promise thy secresie, and 'tis confirm'd. 

Fas. Then here 1 call our good genii for wit- 165 
nesses, whatsoever your designes are, or against 
whomsoever, I will not onely be a speciall actor 
therein, but never disclose it till it be effected. 

Hip. I take thy word, and, with that, thee 
for mine ; 
Come, then, let's more conferre of this anon. 170 

165-6 ybr 'witnesses. So G-D. J2> foe-witnesses. 



scEN£ III.] 'tirifif |Bit^ 39 

On this delicious bane my thoughts shall ban- 
quet ; 

Revenge shall sweeten what my griefes have 
tasted. Exeunt, 

[SCENA TERTIA.] 
\The street ^^ 

Enter Richardetto and Philotis. 

Richardetto. Thou see'st, my lovely neece, 
these strange mishaps, 
How all my fortunes turne to my disgrace, 
Wherein 1 am but as a looker on 
Whiles others act my shame, and I am silent. 

Philotis. But , unkle, wherein can this bor- 
rowed shape S 
Give you content ? 

Rich. rie tell thee, gentle neece: 

Thy wanton aunt in her lascivious riotts 
Lives now secure, thinkes I am surely dead 
In my late journey to Ligorne for you, — 
As I have caus'd it to be rumord out, — lo 

Now would I see with what an impudence 
Shee gives scope to her loose adultery. 
And how the common voyce allowes hereof: 
Thus farre I have prevail'd. 

Phil. Alas, I feare 

You meane some strange revenge. 



40 '®i0^lt^ IActII. 

Rich. O, be not troubled ; 15 

Your ignorance shall pleade for you in all : 
But to our businesse. What ! you learnt for 

certaine 
How Signior Florio meanes to give his daughter 
In marriage to Soranzo ? 

Phil. Yes, for certaine. 

Rich. But how finde you young Annabella's 

love ao 

Inclind to him ? 

Phil. For ought I could perceive, 

She neyther fancies him or any else. 

Rich. There's mystery in that which time 
must shew. 
Shee us*d you kindly ? 

Phil. Yes. 

Rich. And cravM your company ? 

Phil. Often. 

Rich. 'T is well ; it goes as I could wish. 25 

I am the doctor now ; and as for you. 
None knowes you; if all faile not, we shall thrive. 

( Enter Grimaldi. ) 
But who comes here? I know him ; 'tis Grimaldi, 
A Roman and a souldier, neere allyed 
Unto the Duke of Montferrato, one 30 

Attending on the nuntio of the pope 

24-5 Shct uid . . . could wisA. Q does not observe verse arrange- 
ment. 



Scene III.l 'tETtS? |Bit^ 4 1 

That now resides in Parma; by which meanes 
He hopes to get the love of Annabella. 

Grimaldi. Save you, sir. 

Rich. And you, sir. 

Gri. I have heard 

Of your approvM skill, which through the 

city 35 

Is freely talkt of, and would crave your ayd. 

Rich, For what, sir? 

Gri. Marry, sir, for this — 
But I would speake in private. 

Rich. Leave us, cozen. 

Exit Phi. 

Gri. I love faire Annabella, and would know 40 
Whether in arts there may not be receipts 
To move affection. 

Rich. Sir, perhaps there may; 

But these will nothing profit you. 

Gri. Not mee? 

Rich. Unlesse I be mistooke, you are a man 
Greatly in favour with the cardinall. 45 

Gri. What of that ? 

Rich. In duty to his grace, 

I will be bold to tell you, if you seeke 
To marry Florio's daughter, you must first 
Remove a barre twixt you and her. 

Gri, Whose that? 

41 arts. Changed by D in G-D to art. 



42 'tCis; pitp [Act II. 

Rich. Soranzo is the man that hath her heart ; 50 
And while hee lives, be sure you cannot speed. 

Gri. Soranzo ! what, mine enemy ! is't hee? 

Rich. Is hee your enemy? 

Gri, The man I hate 

Worse then confusion; Fie tell him streight. 

Rich. Nay, then, take mine advice, 55 

Even for his graces sake, the cardinall: 
I'le finde a time when hee and shee doe meete, 
Of which Pie give you notice ; and, to be sure 
Hee shall not scape you. Fie provide a poyson 
To dip your rapiers poynt in : if hee had 60 

As many heads as Hidra had, he dyes. 

Gri. But shall I trust thee, doctor? 

Rich. Asyourselfe; 

Doubt not in ought ; thus shall the fates decree, 
By me Soranzo falls, that ruin'd mee. 

Exeunt. 

[SCENA QlJhKV A — Another part of the 
street. ~\ 

Enter Donadoy Bergetto and Poggio. 

Donado. Well, sir, I must bee content to be 

both your secretary and your messenger my selfe. 

I cannot tell what this letter may worke ; but, 

as sure as I am alive, if thou come once to talke 

54 ttll. G suggests to. 

64 ruip'd. So G-D. Q, min'd. 



Scene IV.] '®ifi( pit^ 43 

with her, I feare thou wu't marre whatsoever I 5 
make. 

Bergetto. You make, unkle ? Why am not I 
bigge enough to carry mine owne letter, I pray ? 

Do. I, I, carry a fooles head o' thy owne I 
Why, thou dunce, wouldst thou write a letter, 10 
and carry it thy selfe? 

Ber. Yes, that I wudd, and reade it to her 
with my owne mouth ; for you must thinke, if 
shee will not beleeve me my selfe when she 
heares me speake, she will not beleeve anothers 15 
handwriting. O, you thinke I am a blocke- 
head, unkle. No, sir. Poggio knowes I have in- 
dited a letter my selfe ; so I have. 

Poggio. Yes, truely, sir ; I have it my pocket. 

Do. A sweete one, no doubt ; pray, let's see't. 20 

Ber. I cannot reade my owne hand very well, 
Poggio ; reade it, Poggio. 

Do. Begin. 

Poggio reades. 

Pog. Most dainty and honey-sweete Mistresse : 
I could call you fair e., and lie as fast as any that 25 
loves you ; hut my unkle being the elder tnan^ I 
leave it to him., as more ft for his age and the colour 
of his beard. I am wise enough to tell you I can board 
where I see occasion ; or if you like my unkles wit 
better then mine., you shall marry mee ; if you like 3° 
mine better then his^ I will marry you in spight of 



44 '®t0j0it^ [ActH. 

your teeth. So, commending my best parts to you^ I 
rest 

Tours upwards and downewards, 

or you may chose, 35 

Bergetto. 

Ber. Ah, ha ! here's stufFe, unkle ! 

Do. Here's stufFe indeed to shame us all. 
Pray, whose advice did you take in this learned 
letter ? 40 

Pog. None, upon my word, but mine owne. 

Ber. And mine, unkle, beleeve it, no bodies 
else I 'twas mine owne brayne, I thanke a good 
wit for't. 

Do. Get you home, sir, and looke you keepe 45 
within doores till I returne. 

Ber. How ! that were a jest indeede ; I scorne 
it, yfaith. 

Do. What ! you doe not ? 

Ber. Judge me, but I doe now. S^ 

Pog. Indeede, sir, 'tis very unhealthy. 

Do. Well, sir, if I heare any of your apish 
running to motions and fopperies till I come 
backe, you were as good no; looke too't. 

Exit Do. 

Ber. Poggio, shall *s steale to see this horse 55 
with the head in's tayle ? 

Pog. I, but you must take heede of whipping. 

Ber. Dost take me for a child, Poggio ? 
Come, honest Poggio. Exeunt, 



scENrv.i '®i0pit^ 45 

[SCENA QUINTA — Fnar Bonaventura's 

cell.] 

Enter Fryar and Giovanni. 
Fryar. Peace, thou hast told a tale whose every 
word 
Threatens eternall slaughter to the soule : 
Tme sorry I have heard it ; would mine eares 
Had beene one minute deafe, before the houre 
That thou cam'st to mee! O young man cast- 
away, ^ 
By the relligious number of mine order, 
I day and night have wak't my aged eyes 
Above thy strength, to weepe on thy behalfe ; 
But Heaven is angry, and be thou resolv'd 
Thou art a man remarket to tast a mischiefe. lo 
Looke for't ; though it come late, it will come 
sure. 
Giovanni. Father, in this you are uncharitable ; 
What I have done Pie prove both fit and good. 
It is a principall, which you have taught 
When I was yet your scholler, that the f [r]ame 15 
And composition of the minde doth follow 
The frame and composition of body : 
So, where the bodies furniture is beauty, 

6 number. G suggests yban^er, 8 thy. G, my. 

15 f\r'\ame. Corrected by G. 

17 of body. G-D supplies [the] before body. 



46 '^is; Pitl? [Act II. 

Thcmindes must needs bevcrtue; which allowed, 

Vertue it selfe is reason but refin'd, 20 

And love the quintessence of that : this proves 

My sisters beauty being rarely faire 

Is rarely vertuous ; chiefely in her love, 

And chiefely in that love, her love to me. 

If hers to me, then so is mine to her ; 25 

Since in like causes are effects alike. 

Fry, O ignorance in knowledge ! Long agoe, 
How often have I warn'd thee this before ! 
Indeede, if we were sure there were no deity. 
Nor heaven nor hell, then to be lead alone 30 

By natures light — as were philosophers 
Of elder times — might instance some defence. 
But 'tis not so ; then, madman, thou wilt tinde 
That nature is in heavens positions blind. 

Gio, Your age o're rules you ; had you youth 

like mine, 35 

You'd make her love your heaven, and her 

divine. 
Fry. Nay, then I see th' art too farre sold to 

hell : 
It lies not in the compasse of my prayers 
To call thee backe ; yet let me counsell thee : 
Perswade thy sister to some marriage. 40 

Gio. Marriage ! why, that's to dambe her j 

that's to prove 
Her greedy of variety of lust. 



Scene V.) 'tE^i^H ^{t^ 47 

Fry, O fcarcfull ! if thou wilt not, give me 
leave 
To shrive her, lest shee should dye un-absolv'd. 

Gio. At your best leasure, father : then shee'le 

tell you 45 

How dearely shee doth prize mymatchlesse love ; 

I'hen you will know what pitty 'twere we two 

Should have beene sundred from each others 

armes. 
View well her face, and in that little round 
You may observe a world of variety ; 50 

For colour, lips ; for sweet perfumes, her breath j 
For jewels, eyes ; for threds of purest gold, 
Hayre ; for delicious choyce of flowers, cheekes ; 
Wonder in every portion of that throne. 
Heare her but speake, and you will sweare the 

sphaeres 55 

Make musicke to the cittizens in heaven. 
But, father, what is else for pleasure fram'd. 
Least I offend your eares, shall goe un-nam'd. 

Fry. The more I heare, I pitty thee the more. 
That one so excellent should give those parts 60 
All to a second death. What I can doe 
Is but to pray ; and yet I could advise thee, 
Wouldst thou be rul'd. 

Gio, In what ? 

Fry, Why, leave her yet: 

50 Ivor /J of variety. G-D, world's variety. 



48 '^is; pit^ (Act IL 

The throne of mercy is above your trespasse; 
Yet time is left you both — 

Gio. To embrace each other. 65 

Else let all time be strucke quite out of number: 
She is like mee, and I like her, resolv'd. 

Fry. No more ! Fie visit her ; this grieves me 
most, 
Things being thus, a paire of soules are lost. 

Exeunt, 

[SCENA SEXTA. J room in Florio's bouse.'] 
Efiter Florioy Donado, Afmabella, Putana. 

Flor'to. Where's Giovanni ? 

Annabella. Newly walk*t abroad, 

And, as I heard him say, gon to the fryar, 
His reverent tutor. 

Flo. That's a blessed man, 

A man made up of holinesse : I hope 
Hee'le teach him how to gaine another world. 5 

Donado. Faire gentlewoman, here's a letter 
sent 
To you from my young cozen; I dare sweare 
He loves you in his soule : would you could 

heare 
Sometimes what I see dayly, sighes and teares, 
As if his breast were prison to his heart. 10 

Flo. Receive it, Annabella. 

Anna. Alas, good man ! 



Scene VI.] >®ifi; ^if^ 49 

Do. What's that she said? 

Tutana. And please you, sir, she sayd, " Alas, 
good man!" Truely 1 doe commend him to her ^5 
every night before her first sleepe, because I 
would have her dreame of him ; and shee bark- 
ens to that most relligiously. 

Do. Say*st so ? Godamercy, Putana, there's 
something for thee ; and prythce doe u'hat thou 10 
canst on his behalfe ; sha' not be lost labour, 
take my word for't. 

Put. Thanke you most heartily, sir; now I 
have a feeling of your mind, let mce alone to 
worke. 25 

Jnna. Guardian ! 

Put. Did you call ? 

Anna. Kecpe this letter. 

Do. Signior Florio, in any case bid her reade 
it instantly. 30 

Flo. Keepe it for what ? pray, reade it mee 
here right. 

Anna. I shall, sir. . She reades. 

Do. How d'ee finde her inclin'd, signior ? 

Flo. Troth, sir, I know not how ; not all so 

well 35 

As I could wish. 

Anna. Sir, I am bound to rest your cozens 
debter. 

21 Sha G-D, 'shall. 

31 Keepe it for luhatf G-D, Keep it ! for what ? 



50 '®i0Pt^ [Act II. 

The Jewell Pie returne; for if he love, 
rie count that love a Jewell. 

Do. Marke you that ? — 

Nay, keepe them both, sweete maide. 

Jnna. You must excuse mee. 40 

Indeed I will not keepe it. 

Flo. Where's the ring 

That which your mother in her will bequeath'd. 
And charg'd you on her blessing not to give't 
To any but your husband ? Send backe that. 

Jnna. I have it not. 

Flo. Ha ! have it not ! where is't .? 45 

Anna. My brother in the morning tooke it 
from me. 
Said he would weare't to day. 

Flo. Well, what doe you say 

To young Bergetto's love ? Are you content 
To match with him ? Speake. 

Do. There's the poynt, indeed. 

Jnna [aside']. What shal I doe? I must say 

something now. 50 

Flo. What say } Why d'ee not speake ? 

Jnna. Sir, with your leave. 

Please you to give me freedome ? 

Flo. Yes, you have. 

Jnna. Signior Donado, if your nephew meane 
To rayse his better fortunes in his match, 

52 Tes, you have. G-D supplies "it" after "have." 



Scene VI.J '®t0 pit^ 51 

The hope of mee will hinder such a hope : 
Sir, if you love him, as I know you doe, 55 

Find one more worthy of his choyce then mee. 
In short, I'me sure, I sha' not be his wife. 
Do. Why, here's plaine dealing j I commend 

thee for't ; 
And all the worst I wish thee, is heaven blesse 

thee! 
Your father yet and I will still be friends — 60 
Shall we not, Signior Florio ? 

Flo. Yes, why not ? 

Looke, here your cozen comes. 

Enter Bergetto and Poggio. 

Do. \_aside^. Oh, coxcombe ! what doth he 
make here ? 

Bergetto. Where's my unkle, sirs ? 6s 

Do. What's the newes now? 

Ber. Save you, unkle, save you ! You must 
not thinke I come for nothing, maisters. And 
how, and how is't ? What, you have read my 
letter ? Ah, there I — tickled you, yfaith. 70 

Poggto [aside to Ber.']. But 'twere better you 
had tickled her in another place. 

Ber. Sirrah sweet-heart, I'le tell thee a good 
jest ; and riddle what 'tis. 

Jnna. You say you'd tell mee. 75 

75 you d. G-D, you'll. 



52 'Qtifi; Pit^ [Act II. 

Ber. As I was walking just now in the streete, 
I mett a swaggering fellow would needs take 
the wall of me ; and because hee did thrust me, 1 
very valiantly cal'd him rogue. Hee hereupon 
bad me drawe ; I told him I had more wit then 80 
so : but when hee saw that I would not, hee did 
so maule me with the hilts of his rapier that my 
head sung whil'st my feete caper'd in the ken- 
nell. 

Do. Was ever the like asse seene ? 85 

Anna. And what did you all this while ? 

Ber. Laugh at him for a gull, till I see the 
blood runne about mine eares, and then I could 
not choose but finde in my heart to cry ; till a 
fellow with a broad beard — they say hee is a 90 
new-come doctor — cald mee into his house, and 
gave me a playster; looke you, here 'tis; and, 
sir, there was a young wench washt my face and 
hands most excellently ; yfaith, I shall love her 
as long as I live for't, — did she not, Poggio ? 95 

Pog. Yes, and kist him too. 

Ber. Why, la, now, you thinke I tell a lye, 
unkle, I warrant. 

Do. Would hee that beatc thy blood out of 
thy head had beaten some wit into it ; for I feare 100 
thou never wilt have any. 

Ber. Oh, unkle, but there was a wench would 

87 ite. G-D, saw. 91 hh. So G-D. Q, this. 



Scene VI.l '^{^ ^it^ 53 

have done a mans heart good to have lookt on 
her ; by this light, shee had a face mee-thinks 
worth twenty of you, Mistresse Annabella. 105 

Do. Was ever such a foole borne? 

Anna, I am glad shee lik't you, sir. 

Ber. Are you so ? By my troth, I thanke you, 
forsooth. 

Flo. Sure, 'twas the doctors neece, that wasi'io 
last day with us here. 

Ber. 'Twas shee ! *Twas shee ! 

Do. How doe you know that, simplicity ? 

Ber. Why doe's not hee say so? If I should 
have sayd no, I should have given him the lye, 115 
unkle, and so have deservM a dry beating again : 
rie none of that. 

Flo. A very modest welbehav'd young maide 
As I have seene. 

Do, Is shee indeed ? 

Flo. Indeed 

Shee is, if I have any judgement. 120 

Do. Well, sir, now you are free ; you need 
not care for sending letters. Now you are dis- 
mist ; your mistresse here will none of you. 

Ber. No ! why what care I for that ? I can 
have wenches enough in Parma forhalfeacrownei25 
a peece — cannot I, Poggio? 

1 1 8-9 A "very . . . ha-ve seene. Q prints on one line. 
H9-20 Indeed ihee is . . , judgement. G-D prints on one line. 
Qf as here. 



54 'tHi^^it^ [Act II. 

Pog. rie warrant you, sir. 

Do. Signior Florio, 
I thanke you for your free recourse you gave 
For my admittance; and to you, faire maide, 130 
That Jewell I will give you 'gainst your mar- 
riage. 
Come, will you goe, sir? 

Ber. I, marry, will I. Mistres, farwell, mis- 
tres ; Tie come againe to morrow— farwell, 
mistres. Exit Do., Ber. &' Pog. 135 

Enter Gio. 

Flo. Sonne, where have you beene ? What, 
alone, alone, still, still ? 
I would not have it so; you must forsake 
This over bookish humour. Well, your sister 
Hath shooke the foole off. 

Giovanni. 'Twas no match for her. 

Flo. 'Twas not indeed ; I ment it nothing 

lesse ; 140 

Soranzo is the man I onely like. 
Looke on him, Annabella. — Come, 'tis supper- 
time. 
And it growes late. Exit Florio. 

Gio. Whose Jewell's that ? 

Anna. Some sweet-hearts. 

Gio. So I thinke. 

128-32 Q prints as prose. 

136-9 Sonne . . . off. Q prints as prose. 

136 still. G-D omits second uill. 



scENiVL] '^i&^it^ 55 

Anna. A lusty youth, 145 

Signior Donado, gave it me to weare 
Against my marriage. 

Gio. But you shall not weare it ; 

Send it him backe againe. 

Anna. What, you are jealous ? 

Gio. That you shall know anon, at better 
leasure. 
Welcome sweete night ! the evening crownes 

the day. Exeunt. 150 

145-8 A lusty . , . gave it me. Q prints as one line; to iveare 
. . . marriage f the nextj l>ut you . . . againe y the next; What 
. . . jealous ?y the laat. 



ACTUS TERTIUS. 

[SCENA PRIMA. A room in Donado's house.'] 

Enter Bergetto and Poggio. 

Bergetto. Do'es my unkle thinke to make mee 
a baby still ? No, Poggio, he shall know I have 
a skonce now. 

Poggio. I, let him not bobbe you ofF like an 
ape with an apple. 5 

Ber. *Sfoot, I will have the wench, if he were 
tenne unkles, in despight of his nose, Poggio. 

Pog. Hold him to the grynd-stone, and give 
not a jot of ground ; shee hath in a manner pro- 
mised you already. lo 

[jS^r.] True, Poggio, and her unkle, the doc- 
tor, swore I should marry her. 

Pog, He swore, I remember. 

Ber. And I will have her, that's more. Did*st 
see the codpeice-poynt she gave me, and the is 
box of mermalade ? 

Pog. Very well ; and kist you, that my chopps 
watred at the sight on't. There's no way but to 
clap up a marriage in hugger mugger. 

Ber. I will do't; for I tell thee, Poggio, I ao 
ii-iz True . . . her. Q gives this to Poggio. 



Scene!.] 'tClfi? Ptt^ .57 

begin to grow valiant, methinkes, and my cour- 
age begins to rise. 

Pog. Should you be afraid of your unkle ? 

Ber. Hang him, old doating rascall ! no, I say 
I will have her. 25 

Pog. Lose no time, then. 

Ber. I will beget a race of wise men and con- 
stables that shall cart whoores at their owne 
charges ; and breake the dukes peace ere I have 
done my selfe. Come away. Exeunt. 30 

[SCENA SECUNDA. Jroomin Florio'shouse.] 

Enter FloriOy Giovanniy Soranzo, Annabelldy Putana 
and Vasques. 

Florio. My Lord Soranzo, though I must con- 

fesse 
The proffers that are made me have beene great 
In marriage of my daughter, yet the hope 
Of your still rising honours have prevaild 
Above all other joynctures: here shee is; 5 

She knowes my minde ; speake for your selfe to 

her. 
And heare you, daughter, see you use him nobly. 
For any private speech I'le give you time. 
Come, Sonne, and you the rest; let them alone; 
Agree as they may. 

10 Agree. G-D inserts a second they after agree. 



58 '®i0 Pit^ [Act III. 

Soranzo, I thanke you, sir. lo 

Giovanni \aside to J?tna\. Sister, be not all 

woeman ; thinke on me. 
Soran. Vasques ! 
Vasques. My lord. 

Soran. Attend me without. 

Exeunt orriTies ; majiet Soran. i^ Anna. 
Annahella. Sir, what's your will with me ? 
Soran. Doe you not know 

What I should tell you? 

Anna. Yes, you'le say you love mee. 

Soran. And I'le swearc it too ; will you be- 

leeve it? 15 

Anna. 'Tis not poynt of faith. 
Enter Giovanni above. 
Soran. Have you not will to love ? 

Anna. Not you. 
Soran. Whom then ? 

Anna. That's as the fates inferre. 

Gio. \aside^. Of those I'me regient now. 
Soran. What meane you, sweete ? 

Anna. To live and dye a maide. 
Soran. Oh, that's unfit. 

Gio. \asidt'\. Here's one can say that's but a 

womans noate. 20 

Soran. Did you but see pny heart, then would 

you sweare — 

1*^-14 Doe . . . tell you? Q prints as one line. 
1 6 ' Tis not. G— D, ' Tis no. 



IS 



Scene II.] '^10 ^ft^ 59 

Anna. That you were dead ! 

Gio. ^as'ide]^ . That's true, or somewhat 

neere it. 

Soran. See you these true loves teares ? 

Anna, No. 

Gio, \_asidf^ . Now shee winkes. 

Soran, They plead to you for grace. 

Anna. Yet nothing speake. 

Soran. Oh, grant my suite. 

Anna. What is 't ? 

Soran. To let mee live — 

Anna. Take it. 

Soran. Still yours. 

Anna, That is not mine to give. 

Gio. [aside\ . One such another word would 
kil his hopes. 

Soran. Mistres, to leave those fruitlesse strifes 
of wit, 
I knowl have lovMyou long,and lov'dyoutruely: 
Not hope of what you have, but what you are, 30 
Have drawne me on ; then let mee not in vaine 
Still feele the rigour of your chast disdaine. 
I'me sicke, and sicke to th' heart. 

Anna. Helpe ! aquavitae ! 

Soran. What meane you ? 

Anna. Why, I thought you had beene 

sicke. 

29 Iknozu. G-D, omits I. 31 Have. G-D, hath. 



6o 'tETiS? pit]? [Act IH. 

Soran. Doe you mocke my love ? 

G'lo. [c/j/VA-] . There, sir, shee was too 

nimble. nc 

Soran. [^/jr/VA*] . 'Tis plaine ; shee laughes at 
mc. — These scornefull taunts 
Neither become your modesty or yeares. 

Anna. You are no looking-glasse ; or if you 
were, 
rde dresse my language by you. 

Gin. [/^/5/VA]. Tme confirmed. 

Anna. To put you out of doubt, my lord, 

mee-thinks 40 

Your common sence should make you under- 
stand 
That if I lovM you, or desir'd your love. 
Some way I should have given you better tast: 
But since you are a noble man, and one 
I would not wish should spend his youth in 

hopes, ^5 

Let mee advise you here to forbeare your suite, 
And thinke I wish you well, i tell you this. 
Soran. Is't you speake this ? 
Anna. Yes, I my selfe; yet know, — 

Thus farre I give you comfort, — if mine eyes 
Could have pickt out a man, amongst all those 50 
That sue'd to mee, to make a husband of, 

36-47 ' Tii plaint . . . tell you t/iis. Q prints as prose. 
46 /lere. G-D omits here. 



Scene 11.) '©10 |Dit^ 6 1 

You should have bcenc that man: let this suffice. 
Be noble in your secresie and wise. 

Gio. ^aside\. Why, now I see shee loves me. 

Anna. One word more. 

As ever vertue liv*d within your mind, 55 

As ever noble courses were your guide. 
As ever you would have me know you lov'd 

me. 
Let not my father know hereof by you : 
If I hereafter finde that I must marry, 
It shall be you or none. 

Soran. I take that promise. 6o 

Anna. Oh, oh, my head ! 

Soran. What's the matter ? not well ? 

Anna. Oh, I begin to sicken ! 

Gio. \as'tde\ . Heaven forbid ! 

Exit from above, 

Soran. Helpe, helpe, within there, ho ! 
Looke to your daughter, Signior Florio. 65 

[^Re-^ftitcr Florio y Giovanni ^ Putana. 

Flo. Hold her up ; shee sounes. 

Gio. Sister, how d'ee ? 

Anna. Sicke, brother, are you there ? 

Flo. Convay her to her bed instantly, whil'st 
I send for a phisitian ; quickly, I say. 

Putana. Alas, poore child ! 70 

Exeunt ; manet Soranzo. 

65 Looke . . . F/orio. Q gives this to Giovanni. 



62 '®i0 pit^ (Act HI. 

[^Re-'\gnur Fasques, 

Vas. My lord. 

Soran. Oh, Vasques, now I doubly am undone 
Both in my present and my future hopes : 
Shee plainely told me that shee could not love, 
And thereupon soone sickned, and I fear 75 

Her life's in danger. 

Vas. [aside] . Byr lady, sir, and so is yours, 
if you knew all. — 'Las, sir, I am sorry for that: 
may bee 'tis but the maides-sicknesse, an over- 
fluxe of youth ; and then, sir, there is no such 80 
present remedy as present marriage. But hath 
shee given you an absolute deniall ? 

Soran. She hath and she hath not ; I'me full 
of griefe ; 
But what she sayd Tie tell thee as we goe. 



[SCENA TERTIA. J room in Florins house.] 

Eriter Giovanni and Putana 
Putana. Oh, sir, wee are all undone, quite 

undone, utterly undone, and sham'd forever ! 

Your sister, oh, your sister! 

Giovanni. What of her ? For heavens sake, 

speake ; how do'es she ? 

Put. Oh, that ever I was borne to see this 

day ! 



Scene III.] '®ifi[ |3it^ 63 

Gio. She is not dead, ha ? is shee ? 

Put. Dead? no, shee is quicke; 'tis worse, 
she is with childe. You know what you have lo 
done; heaven forgive 'ee ! *Tis too late to repent, 
now heaven helpe us ! 

Gio. With child ? how dost thou know't ? 

Put. How doe I know't ! am I at these yeeres 
ignorant what the meaning's of quames and 15 
waterpangs be ? of changing of colours, quezi- 
nesse of stomacks, pukings, and another thing 
that I could name ? Doe not, for her and your 
credits sake, spend the time in asking how, and 
which way, 'tis so : shee is quick, upon my 20 
word : if you let a phisitian see her water, y'are 
undone. 

Gio. But in what case is shee ? 

Put. Prettily amended : 'twas but a fit, which 
I soone espi'd, and she must looke for often 25 
hence-forward. 

Gio. Commend me to her, bid her take no 
care ; 
Let not the doctor visit her, I charge you : 
Make some excuse till I returne. — Oh, mee ! 
I have a world of businesse in my head.— 30 

Doe not discomfort her. 

12 G-D puts the comma after now. Q, as here. 
31-3 Doe not . . . ivell. Arrangement of G-D. Q makes but 
two lines, beginning the second with If my father. 



64 '(ETiflf pitV (Act III. 

How doc this ncwcs perplex mee ! — If my father 
Come to her, tell him shee's recover'd well ; 
Say 'twas but some ill tlyet ; li'ee heare, woeman ? 
Jvookc you to't. 35 

Put. I will sir. Exeunt. 



[SCENA QUARTA. J room in Florios house.'] 

Enter F lor to and Ricbardetto. 

Flor'io. And how d'ce finde her, sir? 

Riebardetto. Indirterent well; 

I see no danger, searse perceive shee's sicke, 
l^ut that shee told mee shce had lately eaten 
Mellownes, and, as shee thought, those dis- 
agreed 
With her young stomackc. 

Flo. Did you give her ought ? 5 

Rich. An easie surfeit water, nothing else. 
You neede not doubt her health : I rather thinke 
Her sicknesse is a fulnesse of her blood, — ■ 
You understand mee ? 

Flo. 1 doe ; you counsell well ; 

And once, within these few dayes, will so order't 10 
She shall be married ere shee know the time. 

Rich. Yet let not hast, sir, make unworthy 
choice ; 
That were dishonour. 

Flo. Maister Doctor, no ; 



SCENK IV.| '^itf PitP 65 

I will not doc so neither: in plaine words, 

My Lord Soran/o is the man 1 nieane. 15 

Rich. A noble and a vertuoiis p;eiulenian. 

Flo. As atiy is in Parma. Not farre hence 
Dwels Father Honaventure, a grave fryar, 
Once tutor to my soime : now at his cell 
rie have 'em married. 

Rich. You have plotted wisely. 10 

Flo. rie send one straight to speake with him 
to night. 

Rich, Soranzo's wise ; he will delay no time. 

Flo. It shall he so. 

Enter Frynr and Giovanni. 

FVyar. Good peace be here and love ! 

Flo. Welcome, relligious fryar ; you are one 
That still bring blessing to the place you come 

to. 25 

Giovanni. Sir, with what speed I could, I did 
my best 
To draw this holy man from forth his cell 
'I\) visit my sicke sister ; that with words 
Of ghostly comfort in this time of neede 
Hee might absolve her, whether she live or 

die. 30 

Flo. 'Twas well done, Ciiovanni ; thou herein 
Hast shewed a Christians care, a brothers love. 
Come, father, I'le conduct you to her chamber. 
And one thing would intreat you. 



66 '®t0 pit^ lAcT in. 

Fry. Say on, sir. 

Flo. I have a f^ithcrs deare impression, 35 

And wish before I fall into my grave 
That I might see her married, as 'tis fit : 
A word from you, grave man, will winne her 

more 
Then all our best perswasions. 

Fry. Gentle sir, 

All this rie say, that heaven may prosper her. 40 

Exeunt, 



[SCENA Q UINTA. A room in Richardetto' s 

house. 'J 

Efiter Grmaldi. 
Grlmaldi. Now if the doctor keepe his word, 
Soranzo, 
Twenty to one you misse your bride. I know 
'Tis an unnoble act, and not becomes 
A souldiers vallour ; but in tcrmes of love. 
Where merite cannot sway, policy must. 
I am resolv'd ; if this phisitian 
Play not on both hands, then Soranzo falls. 
Enter Richardettu. 
Richardetto. You are come as I could wish; 
this very night 
Soranzo, 'tis ordain'd, must bee affied 

8-1 1 You are . . . married. Q prints as prose. 



scENiv.) '^isi^it^ 67 

To Annabclla, and, for ought I know, 10 

Married. 

Gri. How ! 

Rich. Yet your patience : — 

The place, 'tis Fryar Bonaventures cell. 
Now I would wish you to bestow this night 
In watching thereabouts ; 'tis but a night : 
If you misse now, to morrow I'lc know all. 15 

Gri. Have you the poyson ? 

Rich. Here, 'tis in this box : 

Doubt nothing, this will doe't ; in any case. 
As you respect your life, be quicke and sure. 

Gri. I'le speede him. 

Rich. Doe. Away ! for 'tis not safe 

You should be scene much here. Ever my love ! io 

Gri. And mine to you. Exit Gri. 

Rich, So ! if this hitt, I'le laugh and hug re- 
venge; 
And they that now dreame of a wedding-feast 
May chance to mourne the lusty bridegromes 

ruine. 
But to my other businesse. Neice Philotis ! ^5 

Enter Philotis. 

Philotis, Unkle. 

Rich. My lovely neece. 
You have bethought 'ee ? 

Phi. Yes, and, as you counsel'd, 

12 Fryar. <2, Fryars. 



68 '®i0 pit^ [Act in. 

Fashion'd my heart to love him, but hee sweares 
Hee will to night be married; for he feares 30 

His unkle else, if hee should know the drift, 
Will hinder all, and call his couze to shrift. 

Rich. To night ? why, best of all ; but let mee 
see — 
I — ha ! — yes, — so it shall be ; in disguise 
Wee'le earely to the fryars ; I have thought on't. 35 
Enter Bergetto and Poggio, 

Phi. Unkle, hee comes. 

Rich. Welcome, my worthy couze. 

Bergetto. Lasse, pretty lasse, come busse, 
lasse ! Aha, Poggio ! 

^Rich.^ [aside'^ . There's hope of this yet. 
You shall have time enough ; withdraw a little ; 
Wee must conferre at large. 

Ber. Have you not sweete-meates or dainty 

devices for me ? 40 

Phi. You shall enough, sweet-heart. 

Ber. Sweet-heart ! marke that, Poggio. By 
my troth, I cannot choose but kisse thee once 
more for that word " sweet-heart." Poggio, I 
have a monstrous swelling about my stomacke, 45 
whatsoever the matter be. 

Poggio. You shall have phisick for't, sir. 

Rich. Time runs apace. 

Ber. Time's a blockhead. 

38 Thtre's ... yet. So G-D. Q gives this to Philotis. 



sciNE vi.i 'tCfe pit^ 69 

Rich, Be rul'd : when wee have done what's 

fitt to doe, 50 

Then you may kisse your fill, and bed her too. 

Exeunf. 

[SCENA SEXTA. Jnnabella's chamber.'] 

Enter the fry ar sitting in a chayre ; Annate lla kneel- 
ing and whispering to him; a table before them and 
wax-lights. She weepes and wrings her hands. 

Fryar. I am glad to see this pennance ; for, 

beleeve me. 
You have unript a soule so foule and guilty. 
As, I must tell you true, I marvaile how 
The earth hath borne you up : but weepe, weepe 

on ; 
These teares may doe you good ; weepe faster 

yet, 5 

Whiles I doe reade a lecture. 

Annabella. Wretched creature ! 

Fry. I, you are wretched, miserably wretched, 

Almost condemn'd alive. There is a place, — 

List, daughter, — in a blacke and hollow vault. 

Where day is never seene ; there shines no 

sunne, 10 

But flaming horrour of consuming fires. 

Enter the fryar. Q adds in his study ; thig is clearly a mistake 
and is corrected in G-D. 



70 '®iS; pit^ [Act III. 

A lightlesse suphure, choakt with smoaky foggs 
Of an infected darknesse ; in this place 
Dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts 
Of never dying deaths; there damned soules 15 
Roare without pitty ; there are gluttons fedd 
With toades and addars ; there is burning oyle 
Powr'd downe the drunkards throate ; the usurer 
Is forc't to supp whole draughts of molten gold ; 
There is the murtherer for-ever stab'd, 20 

Yet can he never dve; there lies the wanton 
On racks of burning Steele, whiles in his soule 
Hee feeles the torment of his raging lust. 
Anna. Mercy ! Oh, mercy ! 
Fry. There stands these wretched things 

Who have dream't out whole yeeres in lawlesse 

sheets 25 

And secret incests, cursing one another ; 
Then you will wish each kisse your brother gave 
Had been a daggers poynt ; then you shall heare 
How hee will cry, " Oh, would my wicked sister 
Had first beene damn'd, when shee did yeeld to 

lust ! " — 
But soft, methinkes I see repentance worke 
New motions in your heart : say, how is't with 

you? 
Anna. Is there no way left to redeeme my 

miseries ? 

24 stands. G-D, stand. 



30 



Scene VL] '^10 |Btt^ 7 1 

Fry. There is, despaire not ; heaven is merci- 
full 
And offers grace even now. 'Tis thus agreed : 35 
First, for your honours safety that you marry 
The Lord Soranzo ; next, to save your soule, 
Leave off this life, and henceforth live to him. 

Anna. Ay mee ! 

Fry. Sigh not ; I know the baytes of sinne 
Are hard to leave ; oh, 'tis a death to doe't : 40 

Remember what must come. Are you content ? 

Anna. I am. 

Fry, I like it well ; wee'le take the 

time. — 
Who's neere us there ? 

Enter Florioy Giovanni. 

Florio. Did you call, father? 

Fry. Is Lord Soranzo come ? 

Flo. Hee stayes belowe. 

Fry. Have you acquainted him at full ? 

Flo. I have, 45 

And hee is over-joy'd. 

Fry. And so are wee. 

Bid him come neere. 

Giovanni \aside\ . My sister weeping, ha ! 
I feare this fryars falshood. — I will call him. 

Exit. 

45-8 / Aa've . . . ca// him. Q prints as four lines ending with 
. . . over-joy^ J . , . neere . . . fahhood . . . him. 



72 'tlTiO pitV [Act III. 

Flo. Daughter, are you resolv'd ? 

Anna. P'athcr, I am. 

\R(-'\tntcr Giovanni \xvitU\ Soranzo and Vasques. 

Flo. My Lord Soranzo, here 5° 

Give nice your hand; for that I give you this. 

Sordfixo. Lady, say you so too ? 

Jtnui. I doe, and vow 

To live with you and yours. 

Fry. Timely resolv'd : 

My blessing rest on both ! More to be done. 
You may pertorme it on the morning-sun. 55 

Exeunt. 

[SCKNA SKPTIMA. The street Wforc the 
monasters^ 

Enter GrimalJi with his rapier dra-zcfie and a darke- 
lanthorne. 

Grimaldi. 'Tis early night as yet, and yet too 

soone 
To Hnish such a worke ; here 1 will lye 
To listen who comes next. Hee lies downe. 

Enter Bergetto and Phi lot is disgt/is\l ; and, after, 

Riehardetto and Poggio. 
Bergetto. Wee are almost at the place, I hope, 

sweet-heart. 
Gri. [^/.f/V//] . I heare them neere, and heard 
one say " sweet-heart." 5 

52-3 I doe . . , yours ■ . . ^ prints as one line. 



ScENr VTT.j 



'^id; pity 



73 



'Tis lu'c ; now |.nii(lc my hand, some :in}»;ry justice, 
Home to liis l)osomc ! Now have at you, sir! 

Str ikc\ lirr. tt?t(l exit. 

lin. ( )h, li(I|)(v, hclpc ! hciv's a slich lalleri 
in my gutls. Oh, lor a llesh-tayh)r (juickly ! — 
Po^l'jo ' ,o 

Philotis. What ayles my love? 

Ihr. I am sure I cannot |)issc forward and 
backward, and yet I am wet l)eroie and hehind. 
— Lights! h^hts ! ho, hj^hts ! 

Phi. Alas, some villaine here has slaine my 

love. i^ 

Riclxu ilttto. Oh, heaven forhid it ' Raise up 
the next nei(.dd)oms 
Instantly, Pog^io, and l)rin<', liphts. I'.xit I'oy-yjo. 
How is't, Her^etto P slaine? It cannot he; 
Are you sure y'are huit ? 

Hir. O, my belly seeths liki- a porridj^e-pot ! lo 
Some cold water, I shall hoyle over else: \\\y 
whole body is in a sweat, that y(>u may wrini^ 
my shirt \ f'eele heic- why, l\)^j.»Jo I 
I Rf \rntn l*oyj\io with ofliicrs tuiil liyht'> iind halhct ts. 

Poyyu). Here. Alas, how doe you p 

/v/VA. (Jive me a li<.dit. What's here? all 

blood ' ( ), sirs, 7.5 

Sij^'uior Donado's nephew now is slaine. 
I'ollow the nuMtherer with all the haste 

iX |i; It iiintidt . . . hurt. ^ print!) .i!i one line. 



74 '®ifif Pit\^ [Act m. 

Up to the citty ; hee cannot be farre hence : 
Follow, I beseech you. 

Officers. Follow, follow, follow ! 

Exeunt officers. 

Rich. Teare off thy linen, couz, to stop his 

wounds. 30 

Be of good comfort, man. 

Ber. Is all this mine owne blood ? Nay, then, 
good-night with me. Poggio, cemmend me to 
my unkle, dost heare ? Bid him, for my sake, 
make much of this wench. — Oh! — I am go- 35 
ing the wrong way sure, my belly akes so. — 
Oh, farwell, Poggio ! —Oh !— Oh ! — Dyes. 

Phi. O, hee is dead ! 

Pog. How ! dead ! 

Rich. Hee's dead indeed; 

*Tis now to late to weepe: let's have him home. 
And with what speed we may iinde out the 

murtherer. 4° 

Pog. Oh,my maister! mymaister! mymaister! 

Exeutit. 

[SCENA OCTAVA. J room in Hippolitas 
house.^ 

Enter Vasques and Hippolita. 
Hippolita. Betroath'd ? 
Vasques. I saw it. 
Hip. And when's the marriage-day ? 



Scene VUI.l '^10 ^tt^ - 75 

Fas. Some two dayes hence. 

Hip. Two dayes ! Why, man, 1 would but 
wish two houres 
To send him to his last and lasting sleepe; 5 

And, Vasques, thou shalt see Fie doe it bravely. 

Fas. 1 doe not doubt your wisedome, nor, I 
trust, you my secresie ; I am infinitely yours. 

Hip. I wilbe thine in spight of my disgrace. — 
So soone ? O wicked man, I durst be sworne lo 
Hee'd laugh to see mee weepe. 

Fas. And that's a villanous fault in him. 

Hip. No, let him laugh j I'me arm'd in my 
resolves. 
Be thou still true. 

Fas. I should get little by treachery against so 15 
hopefull a preferment as I am like to climbe to. 

Hip. Even to my bosome, Vasques ! Let my 
youth 
Revell in these new pleasures ; if wee thrive, 
Hee now hath but a paire of dayes to live. Exeunt. 

[SCENA NONA. The street before the Car- 
dinal^ s gates.^ 

Enter Florioy Don ado y RichardettOy Poggio and Officers. 
Florio. 'Tis bootlesse now to shew your selfe 
a child, 
Signior Donado; what is done, is done: 
Spend not the time in teares, but seeke for justice. 



76 'tlTifif pit^ [Act III. 

Richardetto. I must confesse somewhat I was 
in fault 
That had not first acquainted you what love 5 

Past twixt him and my neece; but, as I live, 
His fortune grieves me as it were mine owne. 

Donado. Ala[s], poore creature! he ment no 
man harme; 
That I am sure of. 

Flo. I beleeve that too. 

But stay, my maisters, are you sure you saw 10 
The murtherer passe here ? 

[//Vj/] Officer. And it please you, sir, wee 
are sure wee saw a ruffian with a naked weapon 
in his hand all bloody get into my Lord Cardi- 
nals Graces gate; that wee are sure of; but for 15 
feare of his grace, bless us, we durst goe no 
further. 

Do. Know you what manner of man hee was ? 

\Second^ Officer. Yes, sure I know the man; 
they say a is a souldier; hee that lov'd your 20 
daughter, sir, an't please y'ee ; 'twas hee for cer- 
taine. 

Flo. Grimaldi, on my life ! 

\Second^ Officer. I, I, the same. 

Rich. The Cardinall is noble ; he no doubt 
Will give true justice. 

Do. Knock, some one, at the gate. 25 

PoggiQ. rie knocke, sir. Poggio knocks. 



Scene IX.] '^{g J^Jt^ yy 

Servant {within^. What would 'ee ? 

Flo. Wee require speech with the Lord Car- 
dinall 
About some present businesse: pray informe 
His grace that we are here. 30 

Enter Cardinall and Grimaldi. 

Cardinal. Why, how now, friends ! What 
sawcy mates are you 
That know nor duty nor civillity ? 
Are we a person fit to be your hoast, 
Or is our house become your common inne, 
To beate our dores at pleasure ? What such haste 35 
Is yours as that it cannot waite fit times ? 
Are you the maisters of this common-wealth, 
And know no more discretion ? Oh, your newes 
Is here before you ; you have lost a nephew, 
Donado, last night by Grimaldi slaine : 40 

Is that your businesse ? Well, sir, we have know- 
ledge on't ; 
Let that suffice. 

Grimaldi. In presence of your grace. 

In thought I never ment Bergetto harme ; 
But, Florio, you can tell with how much scorne 
Soranzo, backt with his confederates, 45 

Hath often wrong'd mee; I to be reveng'd, — 
For that I could not win him else to fight, — 
Had thought by way of ambush to have kild him, 
But was unluckely therein mistooke; 



78 '®i0 |i)it^ [Act ni. 

Else hee had felt what late Bergetto did : 50 

And though my fault to him were meerely chance. 
Yet humbly I submit me to your grace, 
To doe with mee as you please. 

Car. Rise up, Grimaldi. 

You cittizens of Parma, if you seeke 
For justice, know, as nuntio from the Pope, 55 

For this offence I here receive Grimaldi 
Into his holinesse protection. 
Hee is no common man, but nobly borne. 
Of princes blood, though you. Sir Florio, 
Thought him to meane a husband for your 

daughter. 60 

If more you seeke for, you must goe to Rome, 
For hee shall thither : learne more wit, for shame. 
Bury your dead. — Away, Grimaldi ; leave 'em. 

Ex, Car. ^ Gri. 

Do. Is this a church-mans voyce ? Dwels 
justice here ? 

Flo. Justice is fledd to heaven, and comes no 
neerer. 65 

Soranzo ! Was't for him ? O, impudence ! 
Had he the face to speake it, and not blush ? 
Come, come, Donado, there's no helpe in this, 
When cardinals thinke murder's not amisse. 
Great men may do there wills, we must obey ; 70 
But heaven will judge them for't another day. 

Exeunt. 



ACTUS QUARTUS. 

[SCENA PRIMA. A room in Florio's house.] 
A banquet. Hoboyes. 

Enter the Fryar, Giovanniy A?inabellay PhilotiSy Sor- 
anzo, Do7iadoy FloriOy RichardettOy Putana and 
Vasques. 

Fryar. These holy rights perform'd, now take 
your times 
To spend the remnant of the day in feast : 
Such fit repasts are pleasing to the saints 
Who are your guests, though not with mortal] 

eyes 
To be beheld. Long prosper in this day, 5 

You happy couple, to each others joy ! 

Soranxo. Father, your prayer is heard ; the 
hand of goodnesse 
Hath beene a sheild for me against my death ; 
And, more to blesse me, hath enricht my life 
With this most precious Jewell ; such a prize 10 
As earth hath not another like to this. 
Cheere up, my love ; and, gentlemen my friends, 
Rejoyce with mee in mirth : this day wee'le crowne 
With lusty cups to Annabella's health. 

Giovanni {aside). Oh, torture! were the mar- 
riage yet undone, 15 



80 '®i0|aitp [Act IV. 

Ere Fde endure this sight, to see my love 
Clipt by another, I would dare confusion, 
And stand the horrour of ten thousand deaths. 

Vasques. Are you not well, sir ? 

Gio. Prethee, fellow, wayte ; 

I neede not thy officious diligence. 20 

Florio. Signior Donado,come, you must forget 
Your late mishaps, and drowne your cares in 
wine. 

Soran. Vasques ! 

Vas. My lord. 

Soran. Reach me that weighty bowle. 

Here, brother Giovanni, here's to you ; 
Your turne comes next, though now a batche- 

lour; 25 

Here's to your sisters happinesse and mine ! 

Gio. I cannot drinke. 

Soran. What! 

Gio. 'Twill indeede offend me. 

Annahella. Pray, doe not urge him, if hee be 
not willing. 

Flo. How now ! what noyse is this ? 

Vas. O, sir, I had forgot to tell you ; certaine 30 
young maidens of Parma, in honour to Madam 
Annabella's marriage, have sent their loves to 

29 Hoiv . . . this ? G-D inserts the stage direction Hautboyi 
before this line. 

31 young. Q, youg. 



Scene!.] '©10 JSlt^ 8 1 

her in a masque, for which they humbly crave 
your patience and silence. 

Soran. Wee are much bound to them; so 
much the more 35 

As it comes unexpected : guide them in. 

Hoboyes. 

Enter Hippolita and Ladies in white roubes with gar- 
lands of willowes. 

Musicke and a Daunce. 
Soran. Thanks, lovely virgins ! now might wee 
but know 
To whom wee have beene beholding for this 

love. 
We shall acknowledge it. 

Hippolita. Yes, you shall know. 

[ Unmasks. '^ 
What thinke you now ? 

Omnes. Hippolita ! 

Hip. *Tis shee; 40 

Bee not amaz'd; nor blush young lovely bride; 
I come not to defraud you of your man : 
'Tis now no time to reckon up the talke 
What Parma long hath rumour'd of us both : 
Let rash report run on; the breath that vents it 45 

35-6 Wee . . . in. Q prints as prose. 

38 t^is. So G-D ; so copy in British Museum and copy in Bos- 
ton Public Library, Dyce's copy had t/iy ; so copy in library of the 
University of Illinois. 



Si '(Tlfi pitV (Act IV. 

Will, like a bubble, brcakc it sclfe at last. 

But now to vou, sweet creature; — lend's your 

hand -, — 
Perhaps it hath beenc said that I would claime 
Some interest in Soran/.o, now vour lord ; 
What I have right to doc his soule knowes best: 50 
Hut in niv duty to vour noble worth, 
Sweete Annabella, and niv care of vou. 
Here take, Soran/.o, take this hand from me; 
rie once more iovne what bv tlie holv Church 
Is tinish't and allow'd. Have 1 done well ? 55 

Sonin, You have too much ingag'd us. 

Hip. One thing more, 

That you may know my single charity, 
Freely I here remit all interest 
I ere could clayme, and give you backe your 

vowes ; 
And to conlirm't, — reach me a cup of wine, — 60 
My Lord Soranzo, in this draught I drinke 
Long rest t'ec ! — yjside to J'asqucs.^ Looke to 
it, X'asques. 

J 'tis. Fear nothing. 

He gives her a poysond cup ; she drinks. 

Sorari. Hippolita, 1 thankc you, and will pledge 
This happy union as another life. — 65 

Wine, there ! 

Vas. You shall have none; neither shall you 
pledge her. 



////». How' 

f^as. Know now, mistrcssc shcc rJcviJl, your 
ownc nnischicvous treachery hath kild youj 1 70 
must not marry you. 

Hip. Villaine! 

Omnes. What's the matter? 

l^as. Foolish woeman, thou art now like a 
fire-brand that hath kindled others and burnt thy 75 
selfe : — Troppo sperar^ inganna^ — thy vaine hope 
hath deceived thee; thou art but dead; if thou 
hast any grace, pray. 

Hip. Monster ! 

Vas. Dye in charity, for shame. This thing g© 
of malice, this woman, had privately corrupted 
mee with promise of malice, under this politique 
reconciliation to poyson my lord, whiles shee 
might laugh at his confusion on his marriage day, 
I promis'd herfaire, but J knew what my reward 85 
should have beene, and would willingly have 
spar'd her life, but that I was acquainted with 
the danger of her disposition ; and now have 
fitted her a just payment in her owne coyne: 
there shee is, shee hath yet — and end thy dayes 90 
in peace, vild woman; as for life, there's no 
hope ; thinke not on't. 

Omnes. Wonderfull justice ! 

76 injranna. So O-D. Q, niganna. 

8z malice. Changed in G-D to marriage. 



84 '(ElO PttV [Act IV. 

Ruhiirdttto. Heaven, thou art righteous. 
Hip. C), 'tis true; 

I tVcle tiiv minute comming;. Had that shive 95 
Kept promise, C\ mv tiM'nient, — thou this 

houre 
Had'st dved, Soranzo ; — heate aboN e hell tire ! — 
^'et ere I passe away, — cruell,cruell flames, — 
Take here mv curse amongst vou ; may thv hed 
C^t marriaL:;e be a racke unto thv heart, 100 

Hurne blood and bovle in vengeance — C), my 

heart, 
Mv flame's intolerable! — maist thou live 
To t'ather bastards; mav her wombe bring forth 
Monsters; and dve together in vour sinnes. 
Hated, scorn'd and unpittied — Oh ! — Oh ! 105 

Dyes. 
Flo. Was e're so vild a creature ? 
Rich. Here's the end 

Of lust and pride. 

Jnna, It is a fearefull sight. 

Soran. Vasques, I know thee now a trusty 

servant, 

And never will forget thee. — Come, my love, 

Wee'le home, and thanke the heavens for this 

escape. no 

Father and friends, wee must breake up this . 

mirth ; || 

It is too sad a feast. 



Ihnado. licarc hence the body. 

Fry. \aiid(; to Cjio.\. f fere's an ominous 
charjge ! 
Marke this, my Giovani, arirl take heed' 
] feare the event; that niarriagc seldome's goodi»5 
Where the bride-banquet so begins in blood. 

Exeunt, 

[SCKNA SPXUNDA. /I rwrn in Richar- 
detto^s house. ^ 

Enter Richardetto and Phi/otis. 
Richardetto. My wretched wife, more wretch- 
ed in her shame 
Then in h(;r wrf>ngs to me, hath paid too sof^ne 
The forfeit of her modesty and life. 
And J am sure, my neece, though vengeance 

hover, 
Keeping aloofe yet from Soranzo's fall, 5 

Yet hec will fall, and sinke with his owne 

weight. 
I ncinl not — n(;w my heart perswades me so — 
To further his ccmfusion ; there is one 
Above begins to worke : for, as I heare. 
Debate's already twixt his wife and him 10 

2 hath. Q in Boston Pulilic Library misprinr* a sccon'l hathioX- 
lowing t}iiis J tijc- copy at the University of Illinois haa only one. 

7 noiu. G-V) puts the (lash after novu. (.) \>r\nli no-w . . . lo in 
parcnthcBCB. 



86 '^i&^it^ [Act IV. 

Thicken and run to head ; shee, as *tis sayd, 
Sleightens his love, and he abandons hers : 
Much talke I heare. Since things goe thus, my 

neece. 
In tender love and pitty of your youth, 
My counsell is, that you should free your yeeres 15 
From hazard of these woes by flying hence 
To faire Cremona, there to vow your soule 
In holinesse a holy votaresse : 
Leave me to see the end of these extreames. 
All humane worldly courses are uneven ; 20 

No life is blessed but the way to heaven. 
Philotis. Unkle, shall I resolve to be a nun ? 
Rich. I, gentle neece, and in your hourely 

prayers 
Remember me, your poore unhappy unkle. 
Hie to Cremona now, as fortune leades, 25 

Your home your cloyster, your best friends your 

beades. 
Your chast and single life shall crowne your 

birth ; 
Who dyes a virgine, live a saint on earth. 
Phi. Then farwell, world, and worldly 

thoughts, adeiu ! 
Welcome, chast vowes; myselfe I yeeld to you. 30 

Exeunt. 

28 linje. G-D, live[s]. 



Scene III.) '®t5 |0tt^ ,87 



[SCENA TERTIA. A chamber in Soranxo's 
house, "^ 

Enter Soranzo unbrac^t^ and Annabel/a drag^ d in. 
Soranzo. Come, strumpet, famous whoore ! 

were every drop 
Of blood that runs in thy adulterous veynes 
A life, this sword — dost see't? — should in one 

blowe 
Confound them all. Harlot, rare, notable harlot, 
That with thy brazen face maintainst thy sinne, 5 
Was there no man in Parma to be bawd 
To your loose cunning whoredome else but I? 
Must your hot ytch and plurisie of lust, 
The heyday of your luxury, be fedd 
Up to a surfeite, and could none but I 10 

Be pickt out to be cloake to your close tricks, 
Your belly-sports ? Now I must be the dad 
To all that gallymaufrey that's stuft 
In thy corrupted bastard-bearing wombe ! 
Say, must I ? 

Annabella. Beastly man, why 'tis thy fate. 15 
I sued not to thee ; for, but that I thought 
Your over-loving lordship would have runne 
Madd on denyall, had yee lent me time, 
I would have told 'ee in what case I was : 
But you would needes be doing. 



88 '®i0jBit^ [Act IV. 

Soran. Whore of whores ! 20 

Dar'st thou tell mee this ? 

Jnna. O, yes ; why not ? 

You were deceivM in mee; 'twas not for love 
I chose you, but for honour: yet know this. 
Would you be patient yet, and hide your shame, 
rde see whether I could love you. 

Soran. Excellent queane ! as 

Why art thou not with child ? 

Anna, What needs all this. 

When 'tis superfluous ? I confesse I am. 

Soran, Tell mee by whome. 

Anna. Soft, sir ! 'twas not in my bargaine. 
Yet somewhat, sir, to stay your longing stom- 

acke, 
I'me content t'acquaint you with : The man, 30 
The more then man, that got this sprightly boy, — 
For 'tis a boy, that for glory, sir. 
Your heyre shalbe a sonne — 

Soran. Damnable monster! 

Anna. Nay, and you will not heare, I'le speake 
no more. 

Soran. Yes, speake, and speake thy last. 

Anna. A match, a match ! — 35 

This noble creature was in every part 

28 sir. G-D omits. 30 Tme. G-D, I am. 

32 that for glory ^ sir. G-D accepts the correction of Dodslcy, 
reading [<?»</] therefore glory ^ sir. 



Scene Ul.] 'tKtfi? ^it^ . 89 

So angell-like, so glorious, that a woeman 
Who had not beene but human, as was I, 
Would have kneel'd to him, and have beg'd for 

love. — 
You ! why you are not worthy once to name 40 
His name without true worship, or, indeede, 
Unlesse you kneel'd, to heare another name 
him. 

Soran. What was hee cal'd ? 

Anna. Wee are not come to that ; 

Let it suffice that you shall have the glory 
To father what so brave a father got. 45 

In briefe, had not this chance falne out as't doth, 
I never had beene troubled with a thought 
That you had beene a creature : — but for 

marriage, 
I scarce dreame yet of that. 

Soran. Tell me his name. 

Anna. Alas, alas, there's all ! Will you be- 
leeve ? 50 

Soran, What ? 

Anna. You shall never know. 

Soran, How ! 

Anna. Never. 

If you doe, let mee be curst. 

Soran, Not know it, strumpet! I'le ripp up 
thy heart. 
And finde it there. 



90 '®t0 pit^ [Act IV. 

Anna, Doe, doe ! 

Soran. And with my teeth 

Teare the prodigious leacher joynt by joynt. 55 

Anna. Ha, ha, ha ! the man's merry. 

Soran. Do'st thou laugh ? 

Come, whore, tell mee your lover, or, by truth 
rie hew thy flesh to shreds ; who is't ? 

Anna. Che morte \_piu\ dolce che morire per 
amore? , (^Sings. 

Soran. Thus will I pull thy hayre, and thus 

rie drag 60 

Thy lust be-leapred body through the dust. 
Yet tell his name. 

Anna. Morendo in gra [zj ia \dee~\ morire senza 
dolor e. ( Si figs. 

Soran. Dost thou triumph ? The treasure of 
the earth 
Shall not redeeme thee ; were there kneeling kings ^ 
Did begge thy life, or angells did come downe 
To plead in teares, yet should not all prevayle 
Against my rage : do'st thou not tremble yet ? 

Anna. At what ? to dye ? No, be a gallant 
hang-man ; 
I dare thee to the worst : strike, and strike home. ^° 
[I] leave revenge behind, and thou shalt feel't. 

59 [/■'«]• Qj />/«"• ei grazia. Q, gratia. 

63 \dee.^ Q, Lei. These corrections of the Italian follow G-D. 
Weber printed the line thus J Morendo in gratia Dei morire senza 
do/ore. 



Scene III.J '®ifif Ptt^ 91 

Soran. Yet tell mee ere thou dyest, and tell mee 
truely, 
Knowes thy old father this ? 

Anna. No, by my life. 

Soran. Wilt thou confesse, and I will spare 
thy life ? 

Anna, My life ? I will not buy my life so deare. 75 

Soran. I will not slacke my vengeance. 
Enter Vasques. 

Vasques. What d'ee meane, sir ? 

Soran. Forbeare, Vasques ; such a damned 
whore 
Deserves no pitty. 

Vas. Now the gods forefend ! 

And wud you be her executioner, and kill her 
in your rage, too ? O, 'twere most un-manlike. 80 
Shee is your wife : what faults hath beene done 
by her before she married you, were not against 
you. Alas, poore lady, what hath shee com- 
mitted which any lady in Italy in the like case 
would not ? Sir, you must be ruled by your 85 
reason, and not by your fury ; that were unhu- 
mane and beastly. 

Soran. Shee shall not live. 

Vas. Come, shee must. You would have her 
confesse the authors of her present misfortunes, 90 

79 ivud. G-D, would. 

90 authors. So Q and G. D changes to author. 



92 'GTi^jait^ lAcTiv. 

I warrant 'ee; 'tis an unconscionable demand, 
and shee should loose the estimation that I, for 
my part, hold of her worth, if shee had done it. 
Why, sir, you ought not of all men living to 
know it. Good sir, bee reconciled. Alas, good 95 
gentlewoman. . 

Anna. Pish, doe not beg for mee j I prize my 
life 
As nothing. If the man will needs bee madd, 
Why let him take it. 

Soran. Vasques, hear'st thou this ? 

Fas. Yes, and commend her for it; in thisioo 
shee shews the noblenesse of a gallant spirit, and 
beshrew my heart, but it becomes her rarely. — 
\^Jside to Soran.^ Sir, in any case smother your 
revenge ; leave the senting out your wrongs to 
mee: bee rurd,as you respect [y]our honour, 105 
or you marr all. — [Jloud.~\ Sir, if ever my ser- 
vice were of any credit with you, be not so vio- 
lent in your distractions : you are married now, 
what a tryumph might the report of this give to 
other neglected sutors! 'Tis as manlike to beareno 
extremities as godlike to forgive. 

Soran. O, Vasques, Vasques, in this peece of 
flesh. 
This faithlesse face of hers, had I layd up 

104 senting out. G-D, scenting-out. 

105 [_y] our. Q, hour. 



Scene III.) '^10 ^it^ 93 

The treasure of my heart ! — Hadst thou beene 

vertuous, 
Faire wicked woeman, not the matchlesse joyesii5 
Of life it selfe had made mee wish to live 
With any saint but thee : deceitfull creature, 
How hast thou mock*t my hopes, and in the 

shame 
Of thy lewd wombe even buried mee alive ! 
I did too dearely love thee. 120 

Vas. {aside). This is well ; follow this temper 
with some passion : bee briefe and moving ; 'tis 
for the purpose. 

Soran. Be witnesse to my words thy soule 

and thoughts. 
And tell mee, didst not thinke that in my heart 125 
I did too superstitiously adore thee ? 

Anna. I must confesse I know you lovM mee 

well. 
Soran. And wouldst thou use mee thus ? O 

Annabella, 
Bee thus assur'd, whatsoe're the villaine was 
That thus hath tempted thee to this disgrace, 130 
Well hee might lust, but never lov'd like mee : 
Hee doated on the picture that hung out 
Upon thy cheekes to please his humourous eye; 

121-3 This is . . . purpose. Q prints as verse. 
129 Bee thus assured, luhatsoe're. G-D, Be thou assur'd, 
whoe'er. 



94 '^ii>^it\! lAcTiv. 

Not on the part I lov'd, which was thy heart, 
And, as 1 thought, thy vertues. 

Anna. O, my lord ! 135 

These words wound deeper then your sword 
could do. 

Vas. Let mee not ever take comfort, but I 
begin to weepe my selfe, so much I pitty him : 
why, madam, I knew when his rage was over- 
past, what it would come to. 140 

Soran. Forgive mee, Annabella ; though thy 
youth 
Hath tempted thee above thy strength to folly, 
Yet will not I forget what I should bee. 
And what I am — a husband; in that name 
Is hid devinity : if I doe finde 145 

That thou wilt yet be true, here I remit 
All former faults, and take thee to my bosome. 

Vas. By my troth, and that's a poynt of noble 
charity. 

Anna. Sir, on my knees — 

Soran. Rise up, you shall not kneele. 

Get you to your chamber; see you make no 

shew 150 

Of alteration ; He be with you streight. 
My reason tells mee now that "77j as common 
To erre in frailty as to bee a woeman. 
Goe to your chamber. Exit Anna. 

Vas. So! this was somewhat to the matter. 155 



Scene III.) '^10 ^it^ 95 

What doe you thinke of your heaven of happi- 
nesse now, sir ? 

Soran. I carry hell about mee ; all my blood 
Is firM in swift revenge. 

Fas. That may bee, but know you how, or 160 
on whom ? Alas, to marry a great woeman, be- 
ing made great in the stocke to your hand, is a 
usuall sport in these dayes ; but to know what 
secret it was that haunted your cunny-berry, — 
there's the cunning. 165 

Soran. I'le make her tell her selfe, or — 

Vas. Or what ? — You must not doe so ; let 
me yet perswade your sufferance a little while. 
Goe to her ; use her mildly ; winne her, if it be 
possible, to a voluntary, to a weeping tune : for 170 
the rest, if all hitt, I will not misse my marke. 
Pray, sir, goe in. The next news I tell you 
shall be wonders. 

Soran. Delay in vengeance gives a heavyer 
blow. Exit. 

Fas. Ah, sirrah, here's worke for the nonce ! 175 
I had a suspicion of a bad matter in my head a 
pretty whiles agoe ; but after my madams scurvy 
lookes here at home, her waspish perversnesse 
and loud fault-finding, then I remembred the 

160 you. Q, yoo. 

164 secret. G-D accepts Dodsley's emendation, ferret. 
haunted. G— D, hunted. 



96 '©10 Pit^ (Act IV. 

proverbe, that " where hens crowe, and cocks 180 
hold their peace, there are sorry houses." Sfoot ! 
if the lower parts of a shee-taylors cunning can 
cover such a swelling in the stomacke, Tie never 
blame a false stich in a shoe whiles I live againe. 
Up, and up so quicke ? and so quickly too? 185 
'Twere a fine policy to learne by whom this 
must be knowne ; and I have thought on*t — 

Enter Putana. 
Here's the way, or none. — What, crying, old 
mistresse ! Alas, alas, 1 cannot blame 'ee ; wee 
have a lord, heaven helpe us, is so madde as the 190 
devill himselfe, the more shame for him. 

Putayia. O, Vasques, that ever 1 was borne to 
see this day ! Doth hee use thee so too some- 
times, Vasques ? 

Vas, Mee ? Why hee makes a dogge of mee ; 195 
but if some were of my minde, I know what 
wee would doe. As sure as I am an honest man, 
hee will goe neere to kill my lady with unkind- 
nesse. Say shee be with-child, is that such a 
matter for a young woeman of her yeeres to be 200 
blam'd for ? 

Put. Alas, good heart, it is against her will 
full sore. 

Vas. I durst be sworne all his madnesse is for 

186 ivhom. G-D prints a colon at'tt-r this. 
Enttr Putana. J2 prints after ihame for htm. 



scKNic ui.j '^iflf pit^ 97 

that slice will not coiifcssc whose 'tis, which lu'cio"; 
will know ; and when he cloth know it, I am so 
well aecjuainted with his hinnour, that hee will 
forget all strei^ht. Well, 1 could wish shee 
would in |)laine tcrmcs tell all, tor that's the 
way, indeed. 210 

Put. Doe you thinke so ? 

l^as. !*'(), I know't; provided that hce did not 
winne her to't by force. Hee was once in a 
mind that you could tell, and ment to have wrung 
it out of you i hut 1 somewhat pacified him for2i5 
that: yet sure you know a great deale. 

Put. Heaven forgive us all ! I know a little, 
Vascjues. 

1^(15. Why should you not ? Who else should ? 
Upon my conscience, shee loves you dearely, andaio 
you would not betray her to any afHiction for 
the world. 

Put. Not for all the world, by my faith and 
troth, Vascpies. 

I'^as. ' Twere j^itty of your life if you should ;22^ 
but in this you should both releive her present 
discomforts, pacific my lord, and gaine your selfe 
everlasting love and preferment. 

Put. Do'st thinke so, Vascjues ? 

ras. Nay, I know't; sure 'twas some neerezs© 
and entire friend. 

Put. 'I'was a deare friend indeed ; but — 



98 '®i0 Pit^ (Act IV. 

Vas. But what ? Feare not to name him ; my 
life betweene you and clanger; faith, I thinke 
'twas no base fellow. 235 

Put. Thou wilt stand betweene mee and 
harme ? 

Vas. Ud's pitty, what else ? You shalbe re- 
warded, too ; trust me. 

Put. 'Twas even no worse then her owne24o 
brother. 

Fas. Her brother Giovanni, I warrant'ee ! 

Put. Even hee, Vasques; as brave a gentle 
men as ever kist faire lady. O, they love most 
perpetually. 245 

Vas. A brave gentleman indeed ! Why 
therein I commend her choyce. — [Jside.] Bet- 
ter and better. — You are sure 'twas hee ? 

Put. Sure J and you shall see hee will not be 
long from her too. 250 

Vas. He were to blame if he would : but may 
I beleeve thee ? 

Put. Beleeve mee ! Why do'st thinke I am 
a Turke or a Jew ? No, Vasques, I have knowne 
their dealings too long to belye them now. 155 

Vas. Where are you ? there within, sirs ! 
Enter Bandetti. 

Put. How now ! What are these ? 

Vas. You shall know presently. — Come, sirs, 

256 Where are you f So Q. G-D puts the interrogation mark 
after there. 



Scene III.] '®ifif ^it^ 99 

take mee this old damnable hagge, gag her in- 
stantly, and put out her eyes, quickly, quickly liBo 

Put, Vasques ! Vasques ! 

Fas, Gag her, I say ; sfoot, d'ee suffer her to 
prate ? What d'ee fumble about ? Let mee come 
to her. rie helpe your old gums, you toad-bellied 
bitch ! Sirs, carry her closely into the coale-265 
house, and put out her eyes instantly ; if shee 
roares, slitt her nose. D'ee heare,bee speedy and 
sure. [Exeunt Ban.] with Putana, Why this is 
excellent and above expectation ! Her owne 
brother ? O, horrible ! to what a height of liberty 270 
in damnation hath the devill trayn'd our age! 
her brother, well! there's yet but a beginning; 
I must to my lord, and tutor him better in his 
points of vengeance. Now I see how a smooth 
tale goes beyond a smooth tayle. — But soft ! 275 
what thing comes next ? 

Enter Giovanni. 
Giovanni ! as I would wish : my beleefe is 
strengthned ; 'tis as firme as winter and summer. 

Giovanni. Where's my sister ? 

Vas. Troubled with a new sicknes, my lord ; 280 
she's somewhat ill. 

Gio, Tooke too much of the flesh, I beleeve. 

Vas. Troth, sir, and you, I thinke, have e'ne 
hitt it; but my vertuous lady — 

268 [Exeunt Ban.'] So G-D. Q has Exit with Putana. 



100 '(E^iS ptt\» (Act IV. 

Gio. Where's shee ? 2S5 

J'as. In her chamber; please vou visit her; 
she is alone. \^Gio. gives him money.^ Your liber- 
ality hath doublv made me your servant, and 
ever shall, ever. Exit Gio. 

{^Rt'-] enter Sorr^nzo. 
Sir, I am made a man; I have plved mv cue 290 
with cunning and successe. I beseech vou let's 
be private. 

Sonjri. My ladyes brother's come j now hee'le 
know all. 

J'i2s. Let him know't ; I have made some o^ 295 
them fast enouo;h. How have vou delt with my 
lady? 

Soran. Gently, as thou hast counsail'd ; O, 
my soule 
Runs circular in sorrow for revenge : 
But, Vasques, thou shalt know — 300 

Vas. Nav, I will know no more ; for now 
comes your turne to know : I would not talke so 
openly with vou. — [./.f/Vf.] Let my young mais- 
ter take time enough, and goe at pleasure ; hee 
is sold to death, and the devill shall not ransome305 
him. — Sir, I beseech you, your privacy. 

Soran. No conquest can gayne glory of my 
feare. [ExruNt.'] 

l^Exeunt]. Q, exit. 



ACTUS QUINTUS. 

[SCENA PRIMA. The street before Soranzo's 

house.^ 

Enter Annabella above. 
Annabella. Pleasures, farwell, and all yee 
thriftlesse minutes 
Wherein false joyes have spun a weary life ! 
To these my fortunes now I take my leave. 
Thou precious Time that swiftly rid'st in poast 
Over the world to finish up the race 5 

Of my last fate, here stay thy restlesse course, 
And beare to ages that are yet unborne 
A wretched, woefull woemans tragedy ! 
My conscience now stands up against my lust 
With dispositions charectred in guilt, 10 

Enter Fryar [belozv^ . 
And tells mee I am lost : now I confesse. 
Beauty that cloathes the out-side of the face 
Is cursed if tt be not cloath* d with grace. 
Here like a turtle mew'd up in a cage, 
Un-mated, I converse with ayre and walls, 15 

And descant on my vild unhappinesse. 
O, Giovanni, that hast had the spoyle 
Of thine owne vertues and my modest fame, 

lo dispositions. G-D, depositions. 



102 '^10 pit^ [ActV. 

Would thou hadst beene lesse subject to those 

stars 
That luckelesse raign'd at my nativity ! 20 

would the scourge due to my blacke ofFence 
Might passe from thee, that I alone might feele 
The torment of an uncontrouled flame ! 

Fryar, \aside\ . What's this I heare ? 

Anna. That man, that blessed fryar, 

Who joynd in ceremoniall knot my hand 25 

To him whose wife I now am, told mee oft 

1 troad the path to death, and shewed mee how. 
But they who sleepe in lethargies of lust 

Hugge their confusion^ making heaven unjust ; 
And so did I. 

Fry. \_aside~\. Here's musicke to the soule! 30 

Anna. Forgive mee, my good Genius, and 
this once 
Be helpfuU to my ends : let some good man 
Passe this way, to whose trust I may commit 
This paper double lin'd with teares and blood : 
Which being granted, here I sadly vow ^5 

Repentance, and a leaving of that life 
I long have dyed in. 

Fry. Lady, heaven hath heard you, 

And hath by providence ordain'd that I 
Should be his minister for your behoofe. 

Anna. Ha, what are you ? 

Fry. Your brothers friend, the Fryar; 40 



Scene L] '^10 Plt^ IO3 

Glad in my soule that I have liv'd to heare 
This free confession twixt your peace and you. 
What would you, or to whom ? Feare not to 

speake. 
Anna. Is heaven so bountifull ? Then I have 

found 
More favour then I hop'd. Here, holy man : 45 

Throwes a letter. 
Commend mee to my brother; give him that. 
That letter ; bid him read it, and repent. 
Tell him that I, imprison'd in my chamber, 
Bard of all company, even of my guardian, — 
Who gives me cause of much suspect, — have 

time 50 

To blush at what hath past; bidd him be wise. 
And not beleeve the friendship of my lord : 
I feare much more then I can speake : good 

father. 
The place is dangerous, and spyes are busie ; 
I must breake off — you'le doe't ? 

Fry. Be sure I will, 55 

And fly with speede. — My blessing ever rest 
With thee, my daughter; live to dye more 

blessed ! Exit Fry. 

Anna. Thanks to the heavens, who have pro- 

long'd my breath 
To this good use ! Now I can welcome death. 

Exit, 



104 '®i0pit^ IActv. 



[SCENA SECUNDA. A room in Soranzo's 
house. ^ 

Enter Soranza and Vasques. 

Vasques. Am I tobebeleev'd now ? First marry 
a strumpet that cast her selfe away upon you but 
to laugh at your homes, to feast on your dis- 
grace, riott in your vexations, cuckold you in 
your bride-bed, waste your estate upon panders 5 
and bawds — 

Soranzo. No more, I say, no more ! 

Vas, A cuckold is a goodly tame beast, my 
lord. 

Soran. I am resolv'd ; urge not another 

word ; lo 

My thoughts are great, and all as resolute 
As thunder. In meane time I'le cause our lady 
To decke her selfe in all her bridall robes, 
Kisse her, and fold her gently in my armes. 
Begone, — yet, heare you, are the bandetti ready 15 
To waite in ambush ? 

Vas, Good sir, trouble not your selfe about 
other busines then your owne resolution; re- 
member that time lost cannot be recal'd. 

Soran. With all the cunning words thou canst, 

invite 20 

The states of Parma to my birth-dayes feast. 



Scene UL] '©Ifif J^lt^ IO5 

Haste to my brother rivall and his father ; 
Entreate them gently, bidd them not to fayle. 
Bee speedy and returne. 

Fas. Let not your pitty betray you till my com- 25 
ming backe; thinkeupon incest and cuckoldry. 

Soran. Revenge is all the ambition I aspire ; 
To that rie clime or fall j my blood's on fire. 

Exeunt. 



[SCENA TERTIA. J room in Floras house.] 
Enter Giovanni. 
Giovanni. Busie opinion is an idle foole 
That, as a schoole-rod, keepes a child in awe, 
Frights the unexperienc't temper of the mind : 
So did it mee, who, ere my precious sister 
Was married, thought all tast of love would dye 5 
In such a contract ; but I finde no change 
Of pleasure in this formall law of sports. 
Shee is still one to mee, and every kisse 
As sweet and as delicious as the first 
I reap't, when yet the priviledge of youth 10 

Intitled her a virgine. O, the glory 
Of two united hearts like hers and mine ! 
Let poaring booke-men dreame of other worlds ; 
My world and all of happinesse is here. 
And I'de not change it for the best to come: — 15 
A life of pleasure is Elyzeum. 



io6 't!ri0|Dit^ (Actv. 

Enter Fryar. 
Father, you enter on the jubile 
Of my retyr'd delights ; now I can tell you 
The hell you oft have prompted is nought else 
But slavish and fond superstitious feare; 20 

And I could prove it too — 

Fryar. Thy blindnesse slayes thee : 

Looke there, 'tis writt to thee. Gives the letter. 

G'lo. From whom ? 

Fry. Unrip the seales and see. 
The blood's yet seething hot that will anon 25 

Be frozen harder then congeal'd corrall. 
Why d'ee change colour, sonne? 

Gio. Fore heaven, you make 

Some petty devill factor 'twixt my love 
And your relligion-masked sorceries. 
Where had you this? 

Fry. Thy conscience, youth, is sear'd ; 3° 

Else thou wouldst stoope to warning. 

Gio. 'Tis her hand, 

I know't ; and 'tis all written in her blood. 
She writes I know not what. Death ? I'le not 

feare 
An armed thunder-bolt aym'd at my heart. 
Shce writes wee are discovered — pox on dreames 3 5 
Of lowe faint-hearted cowardise ! — discovered ? 
The devill wee are ! which way is't possible? 
Are wee growne traytours to our owne delights ? 



Scene IILJ '^10 plt^ IO7 

Confusion take such dotage ! 'tis but forg'd ; 
This is your peevish chattering, weake old man ! 40 

Enter Vasques. 
Now, sir, what newes bring you ? 

Vasques. My lord, according to his yearely 
custome, keeping this day a feast in honour of 
his birth-day, by mee invites you thither. Your 
worthy father, with the popes reverend nuntio, 45 
and other magnifico's of Parma, have promis'd 
their presence; wil't please you to be of the 
number ? 

Gio. Yes, tell them I dare come. 

Vas. Dare come ? 5° 

Glo. So I sayd ; and tell him more, I will 
come. 

Vas. These words are strange to mee. 

Gio. Say I will come. 

Vas. You will not misse ? 55 

Gio. Yet more ! Tie come, sir. Are you an- 
swered \ 

Vas. So rie say. — My service to you. 

Exit Vas. 

Fry. You will not goe, I trust. 

Gio. Not goe ? for what ? 

Fry. O, doe not goe ; this feast, I'le gage my 
life. 

Enter Va%que%. Q prints this below the question following. 

49 them. G-D, him. 

56 (,) has a semicolon after come and a comma after ur. 



io8 '®i0 pit^ (ActV. 

Is but a plot to trayne you to your mine. 60 

Be rul'd, you sha' not goe. 

Gio. Not goe ! stood Death 

Threatning his armies of confounding plagues 
With hoasts of dangers hot as blazing starrs, 
I would be there. Not goe ? yes, and resolve 
To strike as deepe in slaughter as they all; 65 

For I will goe. 

Fry. Go where thou wilt : I see 

The wildnesse of thy fate drawes to an end, 
To a bad fearefull end. I must not stay 
To know thy fall ; backe to Bononia I 
With speed will haste, and shun this comming 

blowe. 70 

Parma, farwell ; would I have never knowne 

thee, 
Or ought of thine ! Well, young man, since no 

prayer 
Can make thee safe, I leave thee to despayre. 

Exit Fry. 
[G/<7.] Despaire or tortures of a thousand hells, 
All's one to mee; I have set up my rest. 75 

Now, now, worke serious thoughts on banefull 

. plots ; 
Be all a man, my soule ; let not the curse 
Of old prescription rent from mee the gall 
Of courage, which inrolls a glorious death. 
If I must totter like a well-growne oake, 80 



stcENiv.) '^10 |Bit^ 109 

Some under shrubs shall in my weighty fall 
Be crusht to splitts j with me they all shall perish ! 

Exit. 



[SCENA QUARTA. JhailmSoranzo'shouse.] 

Enter Soranzo, Basques and Bandetti, 

Soranxo. You will not fayle, or shrinke in the 
attempt ? 

Vasques. I will undertake for their parts. — 
Be sure, my maisters, to be bloody enough, and 
as unmercifull as if you were praying upon a 5 
rich booty on the very mountaines of Liguria. 
For your pardons trust to my lord ; but for re- 
ward you shall trust none but your owne pockets. 

Bandetti omnes. Wee'le make a murther. 

Soran. Here's gold; here's more; want no- 
thing. What you do 10 
Is noble, and an act of brave revenge, 
rie make yee rich, bandetti, and all free. 

Omnes. Liberty ! Liberty ! 

Vas. Hold; take every man a vizard. When 
yee are withdrawne, keepe as much silence as 15 
you can possibly. You know the watch-word ; 
till which be spoken, move not ; but when you 
heare that, rush in like a stormy flood : I neede 
not instruct yee in your owne profession. 

Omnes. No, no, no. ao 



no '®i0pit^ (ActV. 

Vas. In, then : your ends are profit and pre- 
ferment : away ! Exeunt Bandetti. 

Soran. The guests will all come, Vasques ? 

Vas. Yes, sir. And now let me a little edge 
your resolution : you see nothing is unready to 25 
this great worke, but a great mind in you. Call 
to your remembrance your disgraces, your losse 
of honour, Hippolita's blood ; and arme your 
courage in your owne wrongs ; so shall you best 
right those wrongs in vengeance, which you may 30 
truely call your owne. 

Soran. 'Tis well : the lesse I speake, the more 
I burne. 
And blood shall quench that flame. 

Vas. Now you begin to turne Italian. This 
beside : — when my young incest-monger comes, 35 
hee wilbe sharpe set on his old bitt : give him 
time enough, let him have your chamber and 
bed at liberty ; let my hot hare have law ere he 
be hunted to his death, that, if it be possible, hee 
may poast to hell in the very act of his damnation. 40 

Soran. It shall be so ; and see, as wee would 
wish, 
Hee comes himselfe first. 

\^E'\nter Giovanni. 
Welcome, my much-lov'd brother: 

22 Exeunt. Q, Exit. 

[Einter Gio-vanni. (^ prints in somewhat broken type in the 
margin at the left. 



Scene IV.] 'tB^lfif ^it^ I I I 

Now I perceive you honour me ; y*are welcome. 
But where's my father ? 

Giovanni, With the other states, 

Attending on the nuntio of the pope, 45 

To waite upon him hither. How's my sister? 

Soran. Like a good huswife, scarcely ready yet; 
Y'are best walke to her chamber. 

Gio. If you will. 

Soran. I must expect my honourable friends ; 
Good brother, get her forth. 

Gio, You are busie, sir. 50 

Exit Giovanni, 

Fas, Even as the great devill himselfe would 
have it ! Let him goe and glut himselfe in his 
owne destruction. Harke, the nuntio is at hand : 
good sir, be ready to receive him. 
[^fj/ourisb. 

Enter Cardinally Florio^ Donado, Richardetto, and 
Attendants. 

Soran. Most reverend lord, this grace hath 
made me proud, 55 

That you vouchsafe my house; I ever rest 
Your humble servant for this noble favour. 

Cardinall. You are our friend, my lord : his 
Holinesse 
Shall understand how zealously you honour ' 
Saint Peters vicar in his substitute: 60 

Our speciall love to you. 



112 '®i0 |Bit^ [Actv. 

Soran. Signiors, to you 

My welcome, and my ever best of thanks 
For this so memorable courtesie. 
Pleaseth your grace to walke neere ? 

Car. My lord, wee come 

To celebrate your feast with civill mirth, 65 

As ancient custome teacheth : we will goe. 

Soran. Attend his grace there ! Signiors, keepe 
your way. Exeunt. 



[SCENA QUINTA. Jnnabella's chamber.'] 

Enter Giovanni and Annabella lying on a bed. 
Giovanni. What, chang'd so soone ! Hath 
your new sprightly lord 
Found out a tricke in night-games more then 

wee 
Could know in our simplicity? Ha! is't so? 
Or does the fitt come on you to prove treacher- 
ous 
To your past vowes and oathes ? 

Annabella. Why should you jeast 

At my calamity, without all sence 
Of the approaching dangers you are in ? 

Gio. What danger's halfe so great as thy re- 
volt ? 
Thou art a faithlesse sister, else thou know'st 

64 to. G-D omits. 



Scene v.] 'tClfll JBlt^ "3 

Malice or any treachery beside lo 

Would stoope to my bent browes : why I hold 

fate 
Clasp't in my fist, and could command the course 
Of times eternall motion, hadst thou beene 
One thought more steddy then an ebbing sea. 
And what ? you'le now be honest — that's re- 

solv'd ? '5 

Jnna. Brother, deare brother, know what I 

have beene. 
And know that now there 's but a dyning time 
Twixt us and our confusion : let's not waste 
These precious houres in vayne and uselesse 

speech. 
Alas, these gay attyres were not put on ao 

But to some end; this suddaine solemne feast 
Was not ordayn'd to riott in expence ; 
I, that have now beene chambred here alone, 
Bard of my guardian or of any else. 
Am not for nothing at an instant free'd ^S 

To fresh accesse. Be not deceiv'd, my brother, 
This banquet is an harbinger of death 
To you and mee; resolve your selfe it is, 
And be prepar'd to welcome it. 

17 dyning time. G-D, dining-time, which Dyce says is the read- 
ing of his quarto. A copy in the British Museum, according to D, 
gives dying time. The copies in the Boston Public Library and the 
library of the University of Illinois have dyning. 



114 '®ifi^ |Bit^ [Actv. 

Gio. Well, then : 

The schoole-men teach that all this globe of 

earth 3° 

Shalbe consum'd to ashes in a minute. 

Anna. So I have read too. 

Gio. But 'twere somewhat strange 

To see the waters burne : could I beleeve 
This might be true, I could beleeve as well 
There might be hell or heaven. 

Anna. That's most certaine. 35 

Gio. A dreame, a dreame ! else in this other 
world 
Wee should know one another. 

Anna. So wee shall. 

Gio. Have you heard so ? 

Anna. For certaine. 

Gio. But d'ee thinke 

That I shall see you there? — You looke on 

mee ? 
May wee kisse one another, prate or laugh, 40 

Or doe as wee doe here ? 

Anna. I know not that. 

But good, for the present what d'ee meane 
To free your selfe from danger ? Some way, thinke 
How to escape : I'me sure the guests are come. 

38-41 But d'ee thinke . . . doe here? Q breaks this up into 
six short lines ending with thinke . . . there . . . mee . . . an- 
other . . . laugh . ., . here. 

42 good. G-D, brother, substituted for the sake of the metre. 



Scene V.1 '^10 |Bit^ }^S 

Gio. Looke up, looke here ; what see you in 

my face ? 45 

Jnna. Distraction and a troubled counte- 
nance. 
Gio, Death and a swift repining wrath : — 
yet looke ; 
What see you in mine eyes ? 

Jnna. Methinkes you weepe. 

Gio. I doe indeed; these are the funerall 
teares 
Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my 

cheekes 5® 

When first I lovM and knew not how to woe. 
Faire Annabella, should I here repeate 
The story of my life, wee might loose time. 
Be record all the spirits of the ayre 
And all things else that are, that day and night, 55 
Earely and late, the tribute which my heart 
Hath paid to Annabella's sacred love 
Hath been these teares, which are her mourners 

now ! 
Never till now did nature doe her best 
To shew a matchlesse beauty to the world, 6o 

Which in an instant, ere it scarse was scene. 
The jealous Destinies require againe. 

46 countenance. G-D, conscience, Dodsley's correction. 
5 1 ivoe. G-D, woo, and so the copy at the University of 
Illinois. 

6z requite. G-D, required. Dyce says in a note that the 



ii6 '31^10 pit^ [Actv. 

Pray, Annabella, pray ! Since wee must part, 
Goe thou, white in thy soule, to fill a throne 
Of innocence and sanctity in heaven. 5, 

Pray, pray, my sister ! 

Anna. Then I see your drift — 

Yee blessed angels, guard mee ! 

Gio. So say I ! 

Kisse mee ! If ever after times should heare 
Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps 
The lawes of conscience and of civill use 70 

May justly blame us, yet when they but know 
Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour, 
Which would in other incests bee abhorr'd. 
Give mee your hand : how sweetely life doth 

runne 
In these well-coloured veines ! how constantly 75 
These palmes doe promise health ! But I could 

chide 
With nature for this cunning flattery. 
Kisse mee againe ! — P'orgive mee. 

Anna. With my heart. 

Gio. Farwell ! 

Anna. Will you begone ? 

Gio. Be darke, bright sunne. 

And make this mid-day night, that thy guilt rayes 80 
May not behold a deed will turne their splendour 

quarto has require j the quarto at the University of Illinois has 
require^ d. 



Scene v.] '^10 ^Itp II7 

More sooty then the poets faigne their Stix ! — 
One other kisse, my sister. 

Anna. What meanes this ? 

Gio. To save thy fame, and kill thee in a 
kisse. Stabs her. 

Thus dye, and dye by mee, and by my hand ! 85 
Revenge is mine ; honour doth love command. 
Anna. Oh, brother, by your hand ! 
Gio. When thou art dead 

rie give my reasons for't ; for to dispute 
With thy — even in thy death — most lovely 

beauty 
Would make mee stagger to performe this act 90 
Which I most glory in. 

Anna. Forgive him, heaven — and me my 
sinnes ! Farwell. 
Brother unkind, unkind — mercy, great heaven ! 
_Oh! — Oh! Dyes. 

Gio, She's dead, alas, good soule ! The hap- 
lesse fruite 
That in her wombe received its life from mee 95 
Hath had from mee a cradle and a grave. 
I must not dally. This sad marriage-bed 
In all her best bore her alive and dead. 
Soranzo, thou hast mist thy ayme in this; 
I have prevented now thy reaching plots, 100 

And kil'd a love for whose each drop of blood 
I would have pawn'd my heart. — Fayre Anna- 
bella. 



ii8 '®i0 |Dit^ IActv. 

How over-glorious art thou in thy wounds, 
Tryumphing over infamy and hate ! — 
Shrinke not, couragious hand ; stand up, my heart, 105 
And boldly act my last and greater part ! 

Exit with the body. 

[SCENA SEXTA. A banqueting room in So- 
ran%6's house.'] 

A banquet. 

Enter Cardinally Florioy Donadoy Soranzo, Richar- 
dettOy VasqueSy and attendants ; they take their places. 

Vasques ^aside to Soran^. Remember, sir, what 
you have to do ; be wise and resolute. 

Soranxo [aside to Fas.^ . Enough : my heart is 
fix't. — Pleaseth your grace 
To taste these course confections ; though the 

use 
Of such set enterteyments more consists 5 

In custome then in cause, yet, reverend sir, 
I am still made your servant by your presence. 
Cardinal/. And wee your friend. 
Soran. But where's my brother Giovanni ? 
Enter Giovanni with a heart upon his dagger » 
Giovanni. Here, here, Soranzo! trim'd in reek- 
ing blood 10 

4 course. G— D, coarse. 

5 enterteyments. G-D, entertainments. 



Scene VI.] ' tETtg |0it^ II9 

That tryumphs over death, proud in the spoyle 
Of love and vengeance ! Fate, or all the powers 
That guide the motions of immortall soules. 
Could not prevent mee. 

Car. What meanes this ? 15 

Florio, Sonne Giovanni ! 

Soran. ^aside^. Shall I be forestall'd ? 

Gio. Be not amaz'd : if your misgiving hearts 
Shrinke at an idle sight, what bloodlesse feare 
Of coward passion would have ceaz'd your 

sences, 20 

Had you beheld the rape of life and beauty 
Which I have acted ! — My sister, oh, my 
sister ! 

Flo. Ha! What of her? 

Gio. The glory of my deed 

Darkned the mid-day sunne, made noone as 

night. 
You came to feast, my lords, with dainty fare : 25 
I came to feast too, but I dig'd for food 
In a much richer myne then gold or stone 
Of any value ballanc't ; 'tis a heart, 
A heart, my lords, in which is mine intomb'd. 
Looke well upon't ; d'ee know't ? 30 

Fas. What strange ridle's this ? 

Gio. 'Tis Annabella's heart, 'tis ; why d'ee 
startle ? 
I vow 'tis hers ; this daggers poynt plow'd up 



I20 '21^10 Pit^ IActV. 

Her fruitefull wombe, and left to mee the fame 
Of a most glorious executioner. 35 

Flo. Why, mad-man, art thy selfe ? 

Gio. Yes, father, and that times to come may 
know 
How as my fate I honoured my revenge. 
List, father, to your eares I will yeeld up 
How much I have deserv'd to bee your sonne. 40 

Flo. What is't thou say'st ? 

Gio. Nine moones have had their changes 
Since I first throughly view'd and truely lov*d 
Your daughter and my sister. 

Flo. How ! alas, my lords, 

Hee's a frantick mad-man ! 

Gio. Father, no. 

For nine moneths space in secret I enjoy'd 45 

Sweete Annabella's sheetes ; nine moneths I liv'd 
A happy monarch of her heart and her. — 
Soranzo, thou knows't this : thy paler cheeke 
Beares the confounding print of thy disgrace; 
For her too fruitfull wombe too soone bewray'd 50 
The happy passage of our stolne delights, 
And made her mother to a child unborne. 

Car. Incestuous villaine ! 

Flo. Oh, his rage belyes him. 

Gio. It does not ; 'tis the oracle of truth j 
I vow it is so. 

43—4 Hoiv ! . . . mad-man ! Q prints as one line. 



Scene VI.J 'tEE^lg JBlt^ 121 

Soran. I shall burst with fury. — 55 

Bring the strumpet forth ! 

Vas, I shall, sir. Exit l^as. 

Gio. Doe, sir. — Have you all no faith 

To credit yet my triumphs ? Here I sweare 
By all that you call sacred, by the love 
I bore my Annabella whil'st she liv'd, 60 

These hands have from her bosome ript this 
heart. 

Enter Vas. 
Is't true, or no, sir ? 

Vas, *Tis most strangely true. 

Flo. Cursed man ! — have I liv'd to — Dyes. 

Car. Hold up Florio ! 

Monster of children, see what thou hast done — 
Broake thy old fathers heart. — Is none of you 65 
Dares venter on him ? 

Gio. Let'em ! Oh, my father. 

How well his death becomes him in his griefes ! 
Why this was done with courage. Now sur- 
vives 
None of our house but I, guilt in the blood 
Of a fayre sister and a haplesse father. 70 

Soran. Inhumane scorne of men, hast thou a 
thought 
T'out live thy murthers ? 

Gio. Yes, I tell thee, yes : 

63 Hold up Florio. G-D puts a comma before Florio. 



122 '®i0 JDit^ [ActV. 

For in my fists I beare the twists of life. 
Soranzo, see this heart which was thy wives ; 
Thus I exchange it royally for thine, ^Sial>s him.'] 75 
And thus, and thus ! Now brave revenge is mine. 

\_Soranzo falls.] 

Fas. I cannot hold any longer; you, sir, are 

you growne insolent in your butcheries ? Have 

at you ! Fighf. 

Gio. Come, I am arm'd to meete thee. 80 

Vas. No ! will it not be yet ? If this will not, 

another shall. Not yet ? I shall fitt you anon. — 

Vengeance ! 

E?iter Bandetti. 
Gio, Welcome ! come more of you ; what e're 
you be, 
I dare your worst — \Jhey surround and stab him.] 85 
Oh, I can stand no longer ! Feeble armes 
Have you so soone lost strength ? \Fans.] 

Vas. Now you are welcome, sir! — Away, 
my maisters, all is done ; shift for your selves, 
your reward is your owne ; shift for your selves. 90 
Banditti. Away, away ! Exeunt Bandetti. 

Vas, How d'ee, my lord ? See you this ? 

\_Pointing to Gio.] 
How is't ? 

Soran. Dead ; but in death well pleased that 
I have liv'd 
77 you- Q has no punctuation after you. 



Scene VL] 'tlTig ^it^ 1 23 

To see my wrongs reveng'd on that blacke 

devill. 95 

O, Vasques, to thy bosome let mee give 
My last of breath j let not that lecher live. — 
Oh ! — Dyes. 

Vas. The reward of peace and rest be with 
him, my ever dearest lord and maister ! 100 

Gio. Whose hand gave mee this wound ? 
Vas. Mine, sir; I was your first man : have you 

enough ? 
Gio. I thanke thee ; thou hast done for me 
But what I would have else done on my selfe. 
Ar't sure thy lord is dead ? 

f^as. Oh, impudent slave, 105 

As sure as I am sure to see the[e] dye ! 

Car. Thinke on thy life and end, and call 

for mercy. 
Gio. Mercy ? why I have found it in this jus- 
tice. 
Car. Strive yet to cry to heaven. 
Gio. Oh, I bleed fast ! 

Death, thou art a guest long look't for ; I em- 
brace I "o 
Thee and thy wounds. Oh, my last minute 

comes ! 
Where e're I goe, let mee enjoy this grace. 
Freely to view my Annabella's face. Dyes. 

Donado. Strange miracle of justice! 



124 '^ififpit^ [Actv. 

Car. Rayse up the citty ; wee shall be mur- 
dered all ! 115 

Fas. You neede not feare, you shall not j this 
strange taske being ended, I have paid the duty 
to the Sonne which I have vowed to the father. 

Car. Speake, wretched villaine, what incar- 
nate feind 
Hath led thee on to this ? 120 

Vas. Honesty, and pitty of my maisters 
wrongs : for know, my lord, I am by birth a 
Spaniard, brought forth my countrey in my 
youth by Lord Soranzo's father, whom whil'st 
he lived I serv'd faithfully ; since whose death 1 125 
have beene to this man as I was to him. What 
I have done was duty, and I repent nothing, but 
that the losse of my life had not ransom'd his. 

Car. Say, fellow, know'st thou any yet un- 
nam'd 
Of counsell in this incest? 130 

Vas. Yes, an old woeman, sometimes guard- 
ian to this murthered lady. 

Car. And what's become of her ? 

Vas. Within this roome shee is; whose eyes, 
after her confession, I caus'd to be put out, but 135 
kept alive to confirme what from Giovanni's 
owne mouth you have heard. Now, my lord, 
what I have done you may judge of, and let your 
owne wisedome bee a judge in your owne reason. 



Scene VI.] '®t0 Ptt^ 12$ 

Car. Peace ! — First this woeman, chiefe in 
these effects, 140 

My sentence is, that forthwith shee be tane 
Out of the citty, for examples sake. 
There to be burnt to ashes. 

Do. 'Tis most just. 

Car. Be it your charge, Donado, see it 
done. 

Do. I shall. 145 

Fas. What for mee ? If death, 'tis welcome : 
I have beene honest to the sonne as I was to 
the father. 

Car. Fellow, for thee, since what thou did'st 
was done 
Not for thy selfe, being no Italian, 150 

Wee banish thee for ever; to depart 
Within three dayes : in this wee doe dispense 
With grounds of reason, not of thine offence. 

Fas. 'Tis well : this conquest is mine, and I 
rejoyce that a Spaniard out-went an Italian in 155 
revenge. Exit Fas. 

Car. Take up these slaughtered bodies, see 
them buried ; 
And all the gold and Jewells, or whatsoever. 
Confiscate by the canons of the church. 
We ceaze upon to the popes proper use. 160 

Richardetto \dis covers himself \. Your graces 
pardon : thus long I liv'd disguis'd 



126 '®tSf |Dit)? IActV. 

To see the effect of pride and lust at once 
Brought both to shamefull ends. 

Car. What ! Richardetto,whom wee thought 
for dead ? 

Do. Sir, was it you — 

Rich. Your friend. 

Car. Wee shall have time 165 

To talke at large of all ; but never yet 
Incest and murther have so strangely met. 
Of one so young, so rich in natures store, 
Who could not say, ' Tis pitty sheets a whoore ? 

Exeunt. 

FINIS. 

The generall commendation deserved by the 
actors in their presentment of this tragedy may 
easily excuse such i^^ faults as are escaped in 
the printing. A common charity may allow him 
the ability of spelling, whom a secure confidence 
assures that hee cannot ignorantly erre in the 
application of sence. 



0ott& to 'CijS pitv 

For the meaning of single ivordi see the Glossary. 

3. John, Earle of Peterborough, This nobleman was in 
favour with both James I and Charles I. He was created Earl of 
Peterborough by letters patent of March 9, 1627-8. See article in 
Dictionary of National Biography on Henry Mordaunt, second Earl 
of Peterborough. 

3. first fruites of my leasure. This might refer to the 
termination of some piece of legal business or even to permanent 
retirement from the legal profession j but, as Gifford says, ** so little 
of Ford's personal history is known, that no allusion to any circum- 
stance peculiar to himself can be explained." 

7, 49. Bononia. The Latin form of Bologna, the seat of the 
oldest university in Europe. 

9, I. stand to your tackling. Defend yourself 

9, 8-9. Wilt thou to this geere ? Do you wish to fight ? 

11, 50. I should have worm'd you. Gifford says, 
** The allusion is to the practice of cutting what is called the 'worm 
from under a dog's tongue, as a preventi've of madness." Cf. 
" Some of our preachmen are grown dog mad, there's a worm got 
into their tongues as well as their heads. ' ' Familiar Letters of "James 
Hoivell, II, p. 197, Boston, 1907. 

II» 50-5*- for running madde. For fear of your running 
mad. 

12, 62. unspleen'd dove. According to popular belief, the 
dove owed its gentle disposition to its lack of gall. Sir Thomas 
Browne exposed this '* vulgar error " in Pscudodoxia Epidemica^ 
Bk. in. Chap. 3. 

14, 125-6. an elder brother . . . coxcomb. Fleay 

thought these words contained "a personal allusion to Richard Per- 
kins as having acted those parts for the King's Men, and now per- 
sonating Bergetto for the Queen's." The suggestion is closely 



128 j]iote0 

associated with his contention that the play was produced about 
1626, which has not met with approval. 

30, 56. Padua. The seat of the famous university founded 
in the thirteenth century, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries particularly flourishing. Coryat tells us that he was con- 
ducted about the city by "two English gentlemen that were then 
commorant in Padua when I was there, Mr. Moore Doctor of 
Physicke, and Mr. Willoughby a learned Student in the Univer- 
sity." Crudities^ vol. I, p. 299, Glasgow, 1905. 

31, 5. Sanazar. Jacopo Sannazaro was born at Naples in 
1458, and died in the same city in 1530. The work of his which 
exerted the widest influence in England was his prose romance, the 
Arcadia. 

32, 13. his briefe Encomium. Gifford quotes a line and a 
half of this poem, which may be found in Coryat' s Crudities j vol. i, 
page 302, Glasgow, 1905 : 

Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in ucdis 

Stare urbem, & toto ponere jura mari : 
Nunc mihi Tarpeias,quantumvis Juppiter, arces 

Objice, & ilia tui moenia Martis, ait. 
Si peiago Tybrim praefero, urbem aspice utramque, 

Illam homines dicas, banc posuisse Deos. 

Coryat says that he heard the poet had a '* hundred crownes bestowed 
upon him," and that he wishes his friend *' Mr. Benjamin John- 
son were so well rewarded." It is perhaps worth noting that James 
Howell sends this hexastich with an English translation in a letter 
to Robert Brown of the Middle Temple from Venice, August 12, 
1621. The editions of 1645 and 1650 as well as Miss Repplier's 
recent edition (^Familiar Letters, 1907) differ in several points from 
Coryat's version.' Howell says : ** Sannazaro had given him by Saint 
Mark a hundred zecchins for every one of these verses, which 
amounts to 300 pounds." Since Ford, as well as Brown, was a 
member of the Middle Temple, it is of some interest also that 
Howell announces the sending of a "parcel of Italian books" re- 
quested by Brown. 

33, 30. foyle to thy unsated change. Must I serve as 
a dull background to give the zest of contrast to your lust ? 

36, 107. his ■woe. The " woe occasioned by his falsehood." G. 



jpote0 129 

39, 5. this borrowed shape. His disguise as physician, 
39, 13. corambn voyce allows hereof. What people in 

general think of this matter. 

41, 41-2. Whether in arts ... to move affection. 

An inquiry as to the value of love-potions, charms, etc. 

42, 52. Soranzo ! what, mine enemy ! Gifford notes 

this passage as a case of forgetfulness on Ford's part : '* It is 
strange that this should appear a new discovery to Grimaldi, when 
he had been fully apprised of it in the rencontre with Vasques in 
the first act." As a matter of fact, the information that Soranzo 
has the father's word and the daughter's heart is given by Florio 
just after Grimaldi leaves the stage. Grimaldi had reason to know 
that Soranzo was his rival, but not that he was the accepted lover. 

45> ^-^7- the f[r]ame and composition . . . body. 

Cf. " The temperature of the mind follows the temperature of 
the body ; which certain axiom — says that sage prince of philoso- 
phers, Aristotle — is evermore infallible." Honour Triumphant: 
Worh of John Ford, in, 359. 

69, 8-25. There is a place . . . lawlesse sheets. 

There seem to be some reminiscences here of Pierce Pennilesse : 
*' A place of horror, stench, and darknesse, where men see meat 
but can get none, or are ever thirstie, and readie to swelt for drinke, 
yet have not the power to taste the coole streames that runne hard 
at their feet ... he that all his life time was a great fornicator, 
hath all the diseases of lust continually hanging upon him ... as 
so of the rest, as the usurer to swallow moulten gold, the glutton 
to eate nothing but toades, and the Murtherer to bee still stabd with 
daggers, but never die." JVorks of Thomas Nashe, vol. i, p. 218, 
London, 1904. 

71, 39. Ay mee ! '* The Italian aimc.'" Dyce. 

83, 76. Troppo sperar, inganna. Excessive hope is de- 
ceiful. 

83, 90* shee hath yet. There is apparently some defect In 
the quarto here. 

90, 59. Che morte [piu] dolce che morire per 

amore ? What death more siveet than to die for lo've? 

90, 63. morendo in gra[z]ia [dee] morire senza 

dolore. To die in grace [? of God] is to die -without grief. 



130 jliote0 

92, 103-4. smother your revenge. On the ethics and 

legality of deferred revenge in seventeenth-century Italy see the 
pleadings of the lawyers in The Old Tel/oiv Book (Publication No. 89 
of the Carnegie Institution of Washington) edited by Charles W. 
Hodell, 1908. 

95, 1 79-181. I remembred the proverbe that 
"where hens . . . sorry houses." Under the date Feb. 5, 
1625, Howell writes : *' I remember a French proverb 

La maison est miserable et midiante 

Ou la poult plus haut que le coq chante. 

That house doth every day more wretched grow 

Where the hen louder than the cock doth crow." 

Familiar Letters of James Howell, vol. 1, p. JOZ. 

108, 75. I have set up my rest. I have made up my 
mind. 

lie, 38. let my hot hare have law. By the rules of 
sport a hunted animal was allowed a certain time to get the start of 
his pursuers. 

122, 83. Vengeance. The cue for the appearance of the 
banditti agreed upon in Scene IV of this act. 



Cl^e Tewfien i^eatt 



THE TEXT 

Thk present edition follows the quarto of 1633, which is printed 
with rather more care than the quarto ' Tis Pity — especially in re- 
spect to the arrangement of the lines. As in the case of ' lis Pity, 
Dyce noticed some slight variations in the copies which he exam- 
ined, but nothing of significance. There is no evidence of a second 
edition of the quarto. The old copy has been compared with the 
texts of Weber and of Gifford and Dyce. The treatment of this 
text is identical with that described in the note on * Tis Pity. 



THE 

BROKEN 

HEART . 

A Tragedy. 



nACTBTt 
By the K I N g's Majefties Seruafits 

at the priuate Houfe in the 
Black>fkies$. 



ride Hontr. 




ZONDOU' 

PxIntedbyi.&forHvGH bee stow, airfare to 
be ^1d ac I)is Shop, ncere tbe CaSk ia 



SOURCES 

Thkri is ;i hint in the prologue th.it this pl.iv was b.isod on tact, 
but critics h.jvr born obligcil to agree with Warvl that tlu" "origin 
ot the stor>' on which it is foundcil is unknown." (>i/ llistoryof 
English DftimMic Literaturt^ vol. in, fuige "9.) In the Puhlicjtions 
of the 'Modern I^mguage Asioci,ition of Amer'ua^ xxiv, 2, pp. 274— 
85, 1 have attempted to show that the story Ford had in mind was 
the atVair <\i Sidney and Penelope Oevereux, wlu) was married to 
Lord Rich and later to Mountjov, Karl ot" Devonshire. Hartley Col- 
eridge is the only writer that 1 know of who has poiivted in this di- 
rection. In a note at the bottom ot page xlv ii\ his introduction 
i<^ the works ot Massinger and Ford he savs: " Ford no doubt re- 
membered Mountjoy and his hapless love when he wrote the Hroktn 
Heart." This casual suggestion — - unknown to me when 1 worked 
out my own theory — rightly, 1 think, connects Lady Rich with 
the play ; but the circumstances attending her earlier love atVair rally 
much better witli the situation hiid down in the broken Hear:. 



TO 

THE MOST WORTHY DESERVER 

OV 

THE NOiiLKST TITLES IN HONOUR, 

WlLJJAiVI, 

LORD CRAVKN, HARON OF 
HAMSTEED-MARSHALL 

My Lonl: 

The glory of a great name, acfjiiircd by a greater 
glory of action, hath in all ages liv'd tlje truest chronicle 
to his owne memory. In the practise of which argument, 
your grouth to perfection, even in yr^jth, hath a|jj;ear'd 
so sincere, ko lin-fiattcring a {>erine-riian, that jjo;,terity 5 
cannot with more delight read the merit of noble endeav- 
ours then noble endeavours merit thankes from jjosterity 
to be read with delight. Many nations, many eyes have 
becne witner,;,<;:; of yoiir deserts, and lov'd them : be pleas'd, 
then, with the freedome of your own nature to admit one 10 
amongst all particularly into the list of such as honour a 
faire example of nobilitie. There is a kinde f>f humble am- 
bition, not un-comrricndable, when the silence of study 
breakcs ff^rth into discourse, coveting rather encourage- 
ment then applause; yet herein censure commonly is too 15 
severe an auditor, without the moderation of an able pat- 
ronage. I have ever becne slow in courtship of greatnesse, 
not ignorant of such defects as are frequent to opinion; but 

Nature. G-D, name — apparently a mistake. 



136 (iri)f Cpiotlf 2]^rDtcatorif 

the justice of your inclination to iiulustry emboldens my 
vveaknessc of confiilence to rellish an experience of yourio 
mercy, :is many brave dangers have tasted of your cour- 
aiH\ N'i>ur liMilship strtneto be knowne to the worKl, when 
the worlil knew vou least, by voluntary bvit excellent at- 
tempts: like allowance I plead of being knownc to your 
lordship, — in this low presumption, — by tendring to a»5 
favourable entertainnuMtt a ilcvotion oHVed from a heart 
that can be as truely sensible o\' any least respect as ever 
professe the owner in my best, my readiest services, a lover 
of your naturall love to vextue, 

yobri For J, 



The Sceane. 
SFARIA 

The speakers names fitted to the qualities. 
Amyclas, common to the kings of Laconia. 
TrHOCLKs, Honour of Love linns se^ a favourite. 
Okmlus, Angry ^ sonnc to Crotolon. 
Hassanks, yexation^ a jealous nobleman. 
Armosti.s, an Appeaser, a counsellor of state. 
Crotolon, Noyse, anollier counsellor. 
PkOPHiMJS, Deare, friend to Ithocles. 
Ni:archus, Young Prince, Prince of Argos. 
Tkcnicus, Artist, a j)liilosojjher. 
[II]KMOi'ffi[., CAutton I 

(;roni:as, ru'vernhaunter \ *^'^ ^--ourticrs. 
Amklus, Trusty, friend to Nearchus. 
Phulas, IVatchfull, servant to Kassanes. 

CALANTffA, Flojver of Beauty, the Kings daughter. 
PENTHJiA, Complaint, sister to Ithocles. 
EuPHRANKA, Joy, a maid of honour. 
CuRi^TAU.A, Christall } ., 

Philkma, a Ktsse [ '^'^^^^ "^ ^'^"^^"'■• 

Gra[uJsjs, Old Beldam, overseer of Penthea. 

Persons included. 

Thrasus, Fiercenesse, father of Ithocles. 
Aplotes, Simplicity, Orgilus so disguis'd. 

[Courtiers, Officers, Attendants, &c.] 

[II]emophil. Q. Lcmophil. Gra[u]sis. Q. Gramii. 

Courtiers . . . &. Supplied by G-D. 



THE PROLOGUE. 

Our scaene is Sparta. He whose best of art 
Hath drawne this peece cals it The Broken 

Heart. 
The title lends no expectation here 
Of apish laughter^ or of some lame jeer e 
At place or persons ; no pretended clause 5 

Of jest^s fit for a broth ell courts' applause 
From vulgar admiration : such low songs ^ 
Tund to unchast eares^ suit not modest tongues. 
The virgine sisters then deserv* d fresh hayes 
IVhen innocence and sweetnesse crown d their layes: 10 
Then vices gasp' d for breathy whose whole commerce 
IVas whip* d to exile by unblushing verse. 
This law we keepe in our presentment noWy 
Not to take freedome more then we allow ; 
IVhat may be here thought a fiction^ when times 

youth 15 

JVanted some riper yeares^ was knowne a truth : 
In which ^ if words have cloath'd the subject right ^ 
Tou may pertake a pitty with delight. 



C]^e QBrofeen i^eart 



ACTUS PRIMUS 

SCAENA PRIMA. [J room in Croto/on's 
bouse.J^ 

Enter Crotolon and Orgilus. 

Crotolon. Dally not further; I will know the 
reason 
That speeds thee to this journey. 

Orgilus. Reason? good sir, 

I can yeeld many. 

Crot. Give me one, a good one; 

Such I expect, and ere we part must have : 
Athens ? pray why to Athens ? You intend not 5 
To kicke against the world, turne Cynic, Stoicke, 
Or read the logicke lecture, or become 
An Areopagite, and judge in causes 
Touching the common-wealth? For, as I take it. 
The budding of your chin cannot prognosticate 10 
So grave an honour. 

Org. All this I acknowledge. 

Crot. You doe! then, son, if books and love 
of knowledge 

4 ere. {2> ^''e. 



140 ^\)t llBroknt l^cart [Act i. 

Enflame you to this travell, here in Sparta 
You may as freely study. 

Org. 'Tis not that, sir. 

Crot. Notthat,sir? Asa father I command thee 15 
To acquaint me with the truth. 

Org. Thus I obey 'ee : 

After so many quarrels as dissention, 
Fury, and rage had broach't in blood, and some- 
times 
With death to such confederates as sided 
With now dead Thrasus and your selfe, my lord, 20 
Our present king, Amiclas, reconcil'd 
Your eager swords, and seal'd a gentle peace : 
Friends you profest your selves, which to con- 

firme, 
A resolution for a lasting league 
Betwixt your families was entertain'd 25 

By joyning in a Hymenean bond 
Me and the faire Penthea, onely daughter 
To Thrasus. 

Crot. What of this ? 

Org. Much, much, deere sir. 

A freedome of converse, an enterchange 
Of holy and chast love, so fixt our soules 30 

In a firme grouth of union, that no time 
Can eat into the pledge: we had enjoy'd 

18 broach't. Q, brauch'tj G-D, broach'd. 
31 of union. Q, of holy unionj but some copies of Q omit Ao^. 
See Dyce's note, fVorks of John Ford, vol. i, p. 218. 



Scene I] ^\)t WtOlSitXt l^Cart 1 4 ^ 

The sweets our vowes expected, had not cruelty 
Prevented all those triumphs we prepar'd for 
By Thrasus his untimely death. 

Crot. Most certaine. 3S 

Org, From this time sprouted up that poyson- 
ous stalke 
Of aconite whose ripened fruit hath ravisht 
All health, all comfort of a happy life. 
For Ithocles, her brother, proud of youth. 
And prouder in his power, nourisht closely 40 

The memory of former discontents, 
To glory in revenge. By cunning partly, 
Partly by threats, 'a wooes at once, and forces 
His virtuous sister to admit a marriage 
With Basanes, a nobleman, in honour 45 

And riches, I confesse, beyond my fortunes. 

Crot. All this is no sound reason to importune 
My leave for thy departure. 

Org. Now it followes. 

Beauteous Penthea, wedded to this torture 
By an insulting brother, being secretly 50 

Compeld to yeeld her virgine freedome up 
To him who never can usurpe her heart. 
Before contracted mine, is now so yoak'd 
To a most barbarous thraldome, misery, 
Affliction, that he savors not humanity, 55 

Whose sorrow melts not into more then pitty 
In hearing but her name. 



142 artjt 115rofern ll)fart (acti. 

C?-ot, As how, pray ? 

Org. Bassanes, 

The man that calls her wife, considers truly 
What heaven of perfection he is lord of 
Bv thinking faire Penthea his : this thought 60 

Besets a kinde of monster-love, which love 
Is nurse unto a feare so strong and servile 
As brands all dotage with a jealousie. 
All eyes who gaze upon that shrine of beauty 
He doth resolve doe homage to the miracle; 65 

Some one, he is assur'd, may now or then, 
If opportunity but sort, prevaile : 
So much out of a selfe-unworthinesse 
His feares transport him; not that he findes 

cause 
In her obedience, but his owne distrust. 70 

Crot. You spin out your discourse. 

Org. My griefs are violente: 

For knowing how the maid was heretofore 
Courted by me, his jealousies grow wild 
That I should steale again into her favours. 
And undermine her vertues ; which the gods 75 
Know I nor dare nor dreame of. Hence, from 

hence 
I undertake a voluntary exile. 
First, by my absence to take off the cares 
Of jealous Bassanes; but chiefly, sir. 
To free Penthea from a hell on earth ; 80 



Scene I.| XI^\^t HBrOfem f^tditt 1 43 

Lastly, to lose the memory of something 
Her presence makes to live in me afresh. 

Crot. Enough, my Orgilus, enough. To Athens 
I give a full consent. — Alas, good lady ! — 
Wee shall heare from thee often ? 

Org. Often. 

Crot. See, 85 

Thy sister comes to give a farewell. 
Enter Euphrania. 

Euphranea. Brother ! 

Org. Euphrania, thus upon thy cheekes I 
print 
A brothers kisse; more carefull of thine honour, 
Thy health, and thy well-doing, then my life. 
Before we part, in presence of our father, 90 

I must preferre a suit to 'ee. 

Euphr. You may stile it, 

My brother, a command. 

Org. That you will promise 

To passe never to any man, how ever 
Worthy, your faith, till, with our fathers leave, 
I give a free consent. 

Crot. An easie motion ! 

rie promise for her, Orgilus. 

Org. Your pardon; 

Euphrania's oath must yeeld me satisfaction. 

93 To passe never. G— D, Never to pass. 

94 Worthy. {^ prints at end of preceding line. 



95 



144 ^\\t Broken H^rart (acti. 

Ei/phr. By Vesta's sacred fires I sweare. 

Crot. And I, 

By great Apollo's beames, joyne in the vow, 
Not without thy allowance to bestow her loo 

On any living. 

Org. Deere Euphrania, 

Mistake me not: farre, farre 'tis from my 

thought, 
As farre from any wish of mine, to hinder 
Preferment to an honourable bed 
Or fitting fortune; thou art young and hand- 
some ; 105 
And 'twere injustice, — more, a tyrannie, — 
Not to advance thy merit. Trust me, sister, 
It shall be my first care to see thee match'd 
As may become thy choyce, and our contents: 
I have your oath. 

Euphr. You have : but meane you, 

brother, no 

To leave us as you say ? 

Crot. I, I, Euphrania : 

He has just grounds direct him. I will prove 
A father and a brother to thee. 

Euphr. Heaven 

Does looke into the secrets of all hearts : 
Gods, you have mercy with 'ee, else — 

Ct-ot. Doubt nothing J 115 

Thy brother will returne in safety to us. 



sctNiii.i tEu^e llBrokm l^eart 145 

Org> Soulcs sunkc in sorrowes never are with- 
out 'cm ; 
They change fresh ayres, but beare their griefes 
about 'em. Exeunt omnes. 



SCAENE 2. [y/ room in the palace.'^ 

Flourish. Enter Amyclas the Kingy ArmosteSf Pro- 
philuSy and attendants. 

Amyclas. The Spartane gods arc gracious ; our 
humility 
Shall bend before their altars, and perfume 
Their temples with abundant sacrifice. 
See, lords, Amyclas, your old King, is entring 
Into his youth againe ! I shall shake off 5 

This silver badge of age, and change this snow 
For haires as gay as arc Apollo's lockes ; 
Our heart leaps in new vigour. 

Armostes, May old time 

Run backe to double your long life, great sir ! 

Amy. It will, it must, Armostes : thy bold 
nephew, lo 

Death-braving Ithocles, brings to our gates 
Triumphs and peace upon his conquering sword. 
Laconia is a monarchy at length ; 
Hath in this latter warre trod underfoot 
Messenes pride ; Messene bowes her necke 15 

To Lacedemons royalty. O, 'twas 



146 ®l)e Broken l^eart iacti. 

A glorious victory, and doth deserve 
More then a chronicle ; a temple, lords, 
A temple to the name of Ithocles ! 
Where didst thou leave him, Prophilus ? 

Prophilus. At Pephon, ao 

Most gracious soveraigne ; twenty of the noblest 
Of the Messenians there attend your pleasure 
For such conditions as you shall propose, 
In setling peace, and liberty of life. 

Jmy. When comes your friend the general ? 

Proph, He promis'd 25 

To follow with all speed convenient. 

Enter Crotolony Calanthay Cbrystalla, Philema and 
Euphrania. 

Amy. Our daughter ! — Deere Calantha, the 
happy newes. 
The conquest of Messene, hath already 
Enrich'd thy knowledge. 

Calantha. With the circumstance 

And manner of the fight, related faithfully 30 

By Prophilus himselfe ; but, pray, sir, tell me, 
How doth the youthfuU general! demeane 
His actions in these fortunes ? 

Proph. Excellent princesse, 

Your owne faire eyes may soone report a truth 
Unto your judgement, with what moderation, 35 
Calmenesse of nature, measure, bounds and limits 
Of thankefulnesse and joy, 'a doth digest 



Scene II.] tK^f^t WtOlSitn ^tUtt 147 

Such amplitude of his successe as would 
In others, moulded of a spirit lesse cleare, 
Advance 'em to comparison with heaven. 4© 

But Ithocles — 

Cal. Your friend — 

Proph. He is so, madam. 

In which the period of my fate consists : 
He in this firmament of honour, stands 
Like a starre fixt, not mov'd with any thunder 
Of popular applause or sudden lightning 45 

Of selfe-opinion. He hath serv'd his country. 
And thinks 'twas but his duty. 

Cj-ot. You describe 

A miracle of man. 

Amy. Such, Crotolon, 

On forfeit of a kings word, thou wilt finde him. 
Harke, warning of his comming! all attend him. 50 

Flourish. Enter Ithocles y Hemophill, and Groneas ; 
the rest of the lords ushering him in. 
Amy, Returne into these armes, thy home, thy 
sanctuary. 
Delight of Sparta, treasure of my bosome, 
Mine owne, owne Ithocles ! 

Ithocles. Your humblest subject. 

Armo. Proud of the blood I claime an interest 
in 
As brother to thy mother, I embrace thee 55 

Right noble nephew. 



148 tETlje llBrofeen l^rart [acti. 

Itho. Sir, your love's too partiall. 

Crot. Our country speakes by me, who by thy 
valour, 
Wisdome, and service, shares in this great action ; 
Returning thee, in part of thy due merits, 
A generall welcom. 

Itho. You exceed in bounty. 60 

Cal. Chrystalla, Philena, the chaplet ! — Itho- 
cles. 
Upon the wings of fame the singular 
And chosen fortune of an high attempt 
Is borne so past the view of common sight, 
That I my selfe with mine owne hands have 

wrought, 65 

To crowne thy temples, this provinciall garland; 
Accept, weare, and enjoy it, as our gift 
Deserv'd, not purchas'd. 

Itho. Y'are a royall mayd. 

Jmy. Shee is in all our daughter. 

Itho. Let me blush. 

Acknowledging how poorely I have serv'd, 70 

What nothings I have done, compar'd with th' 

honours 
Hcap'd on the issue of a willing minde ; 
In that lay mine ability, that onely. 
For who is he so sluggish from his birth. 
So little worthy of a name or country, 75 

That owes not out of gratitude for life. 



Scene U] W^t HBrOfeetX ^tdXt J 49 

A debt of service, in what kinde soever 
Safety or counsaile of the common-wealth 
Requires for paiment ? 

Cal, *A speaks truth. 

Itho. Whom heaven 

Is pleas'd to stile victorious, there to such 80 

Applause runs madding, like the drunken priests 
In Bacchus sacrifices, without reason 
Voycing the leader-on a demi-god : 
When as, indeed, each common souldiers blood 
Drops downe as current coyne in that hard pur- 
chase 85 
As his whose much more delicate condition 
Hath suckt the milke of ease. Judgement com- 
mands. 
But resolution executes : I use not. 
Before this royall presence, these fit sleights 
As in contempt of such as can direct : 90 
My speech hath other end : not to attribute 
All praise to one mans fortune, which is 

strengthed 
By many hands. — For instance, here is Pro- 

philus, 
A gentleman — I cannot flatter truth — 
Of much desert ; and, though in other ranke, 95 
Both Hemophil and Groneas were not missing 
To wish their countries peace ; for, in a word, 

79 ''A. Here, as elsewhere, G-D prints He. 



150 tClje llBrofeen l^eart [act i. 

All there did strive their best, and *t was our 
duty. 

Amy. Courtiers turne souldiers ? — We vouch- 
safe our hand : 
Observe your great example. 

Hemophil. With all diligence, loo 

Groneas. Obsequiously and hourely. 

Jmy. Some repose 

After these toyles [is] needfull; we must thinke 

on 
Conditions for the conquered ; they expect 'em. 
On, — come my Ithocles. 

Euphr, Sir, with your favour, 

I need not a supporter. 

Proph. Fate instructs me. 105 

Exeunt. Manent Hemophilic Groneas, 
Christalla et Philema. 

Hemophill stayes Chrystalla ; Groneas, Philema. 

Christalla. With me ? 

Philema. Indeed I dare not stay. 

Hem. Sweet lady, 

Souldiers are blunt, — your lip. 

Chris. Fye, this is rudenesse ; 

You went not hence such creatures. 

Gron. Spirit of valour 

Is of a mounting nature. 

PhiL It appeares so : 

102 [r'i]. Q, are. 



Scene u] ^^t HBtofeen l^eatt 1 5 1 

Pray, in earnest, how many men apeece no 

Have you two beene the death of? 

Gron. Faith, not many; 

We were compos'd of mercy. 

Hem, For our daring 

You heard the generals approbation 
Before the king. 

Chris. You wish'd your countries peace: 

That shewM your charity ; where are your 

spoyles, 115 

Such as the souldier fights for ? 

Phil. They are comming. 

Chris, By the next carrier, are they not ? 

Gron. Sweet Philena, 

When I was in the thickest of mine enemies, 
Slashing off one mans head, anothers nose, 
Anothers armes and legs — 

Phi/. And altogether. la© 

Gron. Then would I with a sigh remember 
thee. 
And cry, " Deare Philena, 'tis for thy sake 
I doe these deeds of wonder ! " — dost not love me 
With all thy heart now ? 

Phi/. Now as heretofore. 

I have not put my love to use; the principall 125 
Will hardly yeeld an interest. 

no Pray^ in earnest ^ hoiv. G— D, In earnest, pray, how. 
G, Pray [now] in earnest, how. 



1 5 2 ® ijr 13roUf n ll>f art [act l 

Gron. By Mars, 

ric marry thee ! 

Phil. By Vulcan, y*are forsworne. 

Except my mind doe alter strangely. 

Gron. One word. 

Chris, You lye beyond all modesty, — tor- 
beare me. 

Hem. rie make thee mistresse of a city ; 

'tis ,30 

Mine owne by conquest. 

Chris. By petition ; sue for*t 

In forma pauperis. — City ! kennell. — Gallants! 
(^ff with your feathers, put on aprons, gallants; 
Learne to reele, thrum, or trim a ladies dog. 
And be good quiet soules of peace, hobgoblins ! 135 

Htm. Christalla! 

Chris. Practise to drill hogs, in hope 

To share in the acorns. Souldiers ! Corn-cutters, 
But not so valiant; they oft-times draw blood. 
Which you durst never doe. When you have 

practis'd 
More wit, or more civility, wee '11 ranke 'ee 140 
I'th list of men : till then, brave things at armes. 
Dare not to speake to us, — most potent 
Groneas — 

Phil. And Hemophill the hardy, — at your 
services. 

133 feather i. Q, fathers; G— D, feathers. 



scENir III.] cije i3rofeen C^eart 153 

Gron, They scorne us as they did before we 

went. 
Hem. Hang 'cm, let us scorne them and be 

reveng'd. Exeunt Chri, et Philema. 145 

Gron. Shall we ? 

Hem. We will ; and when we sleight 

them thus, 
Instead of following them, they'll follow us. 
It is a womans nature. 

Gron. 'Tis a scurvy one. 

Exeunt omnes, 

SCENE 3. \T'he gardens of the palace. A grove ^ 

Enter Tecnicus a philosopher y and Orgilus disguised like 
a sc holler of his. 
Tecnicus. Tempt not the stars, young man, 

thou canst not play 
With the severity of fate : this change 
Of habit and disguise in outward view. 
Hides not the secrets of thy soule within thee. 
From their quicke-piercing eyes, which dive at 

all times 5 

Downe to thy thoughts : in thy aspect I note 
A consequence of danger. 

Orgilus. Give me leave. 

Grave Tecnicus, without fore-dooming destiny, 
Under thy roofe to ease my silent griefes 
By applying to my hidden wounds the balme 10 



154 ^\)t BroUrn il>fart [acti. 

Of thy oraculous lectures: if my fortune 
Run such a crooked by-way as to wrest 
A'ly steps to ruine, yet thy learned precepts 
Shall call me backe, and set my footings streight: 
I will not court the world. 

Tnn. Ah, Orgilus, 15 

Neglects in young men of delights and life 
Run often to extremities ; they care not 
For harmes to others who contemne their owne. 

Org. But I, most learned artist, am not so 
much 
At ods with nature that I grutch the thrift zo 

Of any true deserver; nor doth malice 
Of present hopes so checke them with despaire, 
As that I yeeld to thought of more affliction 
Then what is incident to frailty : wherefore 
Impute not this retired course of living 25 

Some little time to any other cause 
Then what I justly render : the information 
Of an unsetled minde; as the effect 
Must clearely witnesse. 

T^cn. Spirit of truth inspire thee ! 

On these conditions I conceale thy change, 30 

And willingly admit thee for an auditor. 
rie to my study. 

Org. I to contemplations: 

In these delightfull walkes. \_Exif. Teen.'] — 

Thus metamorphiz'd, 



Scene III] ^1)0 llBrofem i^eart 155 

I may without suspition hearken after 
Pentheas usage and Euphranias faith. 35 

Love ! Thou art full of mystery : the deities 
Themselves are not secure in searching out 
The secrets of those flames which hidden wast 
A breast made tributary to the lawes 
Of beauty. Physicke yet hath never found 40 

A remedy to cure a lovers wound. 
Ha ! who are those that crosse yon private walke 
Into the shadowing grove in amorous foldings? 
Prophilus passeth over^ supporting Euphrania, 
and whispering. 
My sister! O, my sister! 'tis Euphrania 
With Prophilus: supported too; I would 45 

It were an apparition ! Prophilus 
Is Ithocles his friend ; it strangely pusles me. 
Againe ! Helpe me, my booke ; this schollers habit 
Must stand my privilege : my mind is busie ; 
Mine eyes and eares are open. 

Walke byy reading. 
Enter againe Prophilus and Euphrania. 

Prophilus. Doe not wast 5° 

The span of this stolne time, lent by the gods 
For precious use, in nicenesse ! Bright Euphra- 

nea, 
Should I repeat old vowes, or study new, 
For purchase of beleefe to my desires — 

Org. \_aside^. Desires? 



1 5^ ^\)t llBroUrn il;rart [act l 

Proph. My service, my integrity — 55 

Org. [aside^ . That 's better. 

Proph. I should but repeat a lesson 

Oft conn'd without a prompter but thine eyes : 
My love is honourable — 

Org. [^/-f/V/f]. So was mine 

To my Pcnthea : chastly honourable. 

Proph. Nor wants there more addition to my 

wish 60 

Of happinesse then having thee a wife; 
Already sure of Ithoclcs, a friend 
Firme and un-alterable. 

Org. [^asidtf^. But a brother 

More cruell then the grave. 

Euphranea. What can you looke for 

\\\ answer to your noble protestations, 65 

From an unskilfull mayd, but language suited 
To a divided minde ? 

Org. \juide^. Hold out, Euphranea! 

Euphr. Know, Prophilus, I never under- 
valued. 
From the first time you mentioned worthy love. 
Your merit, mcancs, or person. It had beene 7° 
A fault of judgement in me, and a dulnesse 
In my affections, not to weigh and thanke 
My better starres that offered me the grace 
Of so much blisfulnesse. For, to speake truth, 
The law of my desires kept equall pace 75 



Scene III.] ^Ijf 115roUCU i)Cait 1 57 

With yours, nor have 1 left that resolution ; 
But oncly, in a word, what-cver choyce 
J^ivcs nearest in my heart must first procure 
Consent both from my father and my brother, 
K're he can owne mc his. 

Org. [^/.v/VA']. She is forsworne else. 80 

Proph. Leave me that taske. 

Euphr. My brother, c're he parted 

To Athens, had my oath. 

Org. [(iside^. Yes, yes, *a had sure. 

Proph. I doubt not, u^ith the meanes the court 
supplies. 
But to prevaile at pleasure. 

Org. ^aside^ . Very likely ! 

Proph. Meane time, best, dearest, I may build 

my hopes 85 

On the foundation of thy constant sufFrance 
In any opposition. 

Euphr. Death shall sooner 

Divorce life and the joyes 1 have in living 
Then my chast vowes from truth. 

Proph. On thy faire hand 

I scale the like. 

Org. [aside^. There is no faith in woman — 90 
Passion, O, be contain'd ! my very heart-strings 
Are on the tenters. 

Euphr. Sir, we are over-heard, 

92 Sit . G-1) omits j see note in vol. 1, |>. 232. 



158 ®t)r Brofern Uncart [act i. 

Cupid protect us! 'twas a stirring, sir, 
Of some one necre. 

Proph. Your feares are needlesse, lady ; 

None have accesse into these private pleasures 95 
Except some neere in court, or bosome student 
From Tecnicus his oratory, granted 
By speciall favour lately from the king 
Unto the grave philosopher. 

Euphr. Me thinkes 

I heare one talking to himselfe: I see him. 100 

Proph. 'Tis a poore scholler, as I told you, 

lady. 
Org. [aside^ . I am discovered. — \^Js if think- 
ing aloud.'\ Say it : is it possible 
With a smooth tongue, a leering countenance, 
Flattery, or force of reason — I come t*ee, sir — 
To turne or to appease the raging sea? 105 

Answer to that. — Your art ! what art ? to catch 
And hold fast in a net the sunnes small atomes ? 
No, no ; they'll out, they'll out : ye may as easily 
Out run a cloud driven by a northerne blast. 
As fiddle faddle so! Peace, or speake sense. no 
Euphr. Call you this thing a scholler? 'las 

hee's lunaticke. 
Proph. Observe him, sweet ; 'tis but his rec- 
reation. 
Org. But will you heare a little ! You are so 
teatchy. 



Scene III] ^^t WtO^^tXl fQtM 159 

You keepe no rule in argument. Philosophy 
Workcs not upon impossibilities, 115 

But naturall conclusions. — Mew! — absurd! 
The metaphysicks are but speculations 
Of the celestiall bodies, or such accidents 
As not mixt perfectly, in the ayre ingendred, 
Appeare to us unnatural! ; that's all. 120 

Prove it ; — yet, with a reverence to your gravity, 
rie baulke illiterate sawcinesse, submitting 
My sole opinion to the touch of writers. 
Proph. Now let us fall in with him. 
Org. Ha, ha, ha ! 

These apish boyes, when they but tast the 

grammates 125 

And principals of theory, imagine 
They can oppose their teachers. Confidence 
Leads many into errors. 

Proph. By your leave, sir. 

Euphr. Are you a scholler, friend ? 
Org. I am, gay creature, 

With pardon of your deities, a mushrome 130 

On whom the dew of heaven drops now and 

then ; 
The sunne shines on me too, I thanke his 

beames ! 
Sometime I feele their warmth ; and eat, and 
sleepe. 
Proph. Does Tecnicus read to thee ? 



i6o tE^ti^ llBrofeen J^eart [acti. 

Org. Yes, forsooth, 

He is my master surely ; yonder dore j^r 

Opens upon his study. 

Proph, Happy creatures ! 

Such people toyle not, sweet, in heats of state. 
Nor sinke in thawes of greatnesse: their affec- 
tions 
Keepe order with the limits of their modesty ; 
Their love is love of vertue. — What's thy 

name ? ,40 

Org, Aplotes, sumptuous master, a poore 

wretch. 
Euphr. Dost thou want any thing ? 
Org. Books, Venus, books. 

Proph. Lady, a new conceit comes in my 
thought. 
And most availeable for both our comforts. 
Euphr. My lord, — 

Proph. Whiles I endevour to deserve 145 

Your fathers blessing to our loves, this scholler 
May daily at some certaine houres attend. 
What notice I can write of my successe. 
Here in this grove, and give it to your hands : 
The like from you tome: so can we never, 150 
Barr'd of our mutuall speech, want sure intelli- 
gence ; 
And thus our hearts may talke when our tongues 
cannot. 



Scene III.] ^1)0 DBrOfeeU f^tm 1 6 1 

Euphr. Occasion is most favourable; use it. 

Proph. Aplotes, wilt thou wait us twice a day, - 
At nine i' th morning and at foure at night, 155 
Here in this bower, to convey such letters 
As each shall send to other ? Doe it willingly. 
Safely, and secretly, and I will furnish 
Thy study, or what else thou canst desire. 

Org. Jove, make me thankfull, thankfull, I 
beseech thee, 160 

Propitious Jove ! I will prove sure and trusty : 
You will not faile me bookes ? 

Proph. Nor ought besides 

Thy heart can wish. This ladies name's Eu- 

phranea, 
Mine Prophilus. 

Org. I have a pretty memory: 

It must prove my best friend. — I will not misse 165 
One minute of the houres appointed. 

Proph. Write 

The bookes thou wouldst have brought thee in 

a note. 
Or fake thy selfe some money. 

Org. No, no money: 

Money to schollers is a spirit invisible. 
We dare not finger it ; or bookes, or nothing. 170 

Proph. Bookes of what sort thou wilt : doe 
not forget 
Our names. 



1 62 ^\)t llBroUm Harare iact i. 

Org. I warrant 'ee, I warrant 'ee. 

Proph. Smile, Hymen, on the grouth of our 
desires ; 
Wee'll feed thy torches with eternall fires! 

Exeunty manet Org. 
Org. Put out thy torches, Hymen, or their 
light 175 

Shall meet a darkenesse of eternall night. 
Inspire me, Mercury, with swift deceits ; 
Ingenious fate has Icpt into mine armes. 
Beyond the compasse of my braine. — Mortal- 
ity 
Creeps on the dung of earth, and cannot reach 180 
The riddles which are purpos'd by the gods. 
Great arts best write themselves in their owne 

stories ; 
They dye too basely who out-live their glories. 

Exit, 



ACTUS SECUNDUS: SCAENA PRIMA. 

[y/ room in Bassanes* house.^ 

Enter Bassanes and P hulas. 
Bassanes. Tie have that window next the 
street dam'd up ; 
It gives too full a prospect to temptation, 
And courts a gazers glances : there's a lust 
Committed by the eye, that sweats and travels. 
Plots, wakes, contrives, till the deformed bear- 

whelpe 5 

Adultery be lick'd into the act. 
The very act : that light shall be dam'd up ; 
D'ee heare, sir? 

Phulas. I doe heare, my lord ; a mason 

Shall be provided suddenly. 

Bass. Some rogue, 

Some rogue of your confederacy, — factor i© 

For slaves and strumpets, — to convey close 

packets 
From this spruce springall and the tother young- 
ster; 
That gawdy eare-wrig, or my lord your patron, 
Whose pensioner you are. — I'le teare thy throat 

out, 
Sonne of a cat, ill-looking hounds-head; rip up 15 



1 64 W\)t Brofern Harare [act n. 

Thy ulcerous maw, if I but scent a paper, 
A scroll, but halfe as big as what can cover 
A wart upon thy nose, a spot, a pimple, 
Directed to my lady : it may prove 
A mysticall preparative to lewdncsse. ao 

Phu/. Care shall be had. — I will turne every 

thread 
About me to an eye. — \^Jside.~\ Here *S a sweet 

life! 
Bass. The city houswives, cunning in the 

traffique 
Of chamber-merchandise, set all at price 
By whole-sale ; yet they wipe their mouthes, and 

simper, 25 

Cull, kisse, and cry " Sweet-hart," and stroake 

the head 
Which they have branch'd ; and all is well 

again e ! 
Dull clods of dirt, who dare not feele the rubs 
Stucke on the fore-heads ? 

Phul. 'Tis a villanous world, 

One cannot hold his owne in't. 

Bass. Dames at court, 30 

Who flaunt in riots, runne another byas : 
Their pleasure heaves the patient asse that suf- 
fers 
Up on the stilts of office, titles, incomes; 
Promotion justifies the shame, and sues for*t. 



Scene 1] ^\)t llBrOkeiT fi^tUtt 165 

Poore honour! thou art stabM and blccd'st to 

death 35 

By such unlawfull hire. The country mistresse 
Is yet more wary, and in blushes hides 
What ever trespasse drawes her troth to guilt ; 
But all are false. On this truth I am bold, 
No woman but can fall, and doth, or would — 40 
Now for the newest newes about the citie ; 
What blab the voyces, sirrha ? 

Pbu/. O, my lord. 

The rarest, quaintest, strangest, tickling newes 
That ever — 

Bass. Hey da ! up and ride me, rascall ! 
What is 't ? 

Phu/. Forsooth, they say, the king has mewM 45 
All his gray beard, instead of which is budded 
Another of a pure carnation colour, 
Speckled with greene and russet. 

Bass. Ignorant blocke ! 

Phul. Yes truly; and 'tis talkt about the 
streets. 
That since Lord Ithocles came home, the lyons 50 
Never left roaring, at which noyse the beares 
Have danc'd their very hearts out. 

Bass. Dance out thine too. 

Pbu/. Besides, Lord Orgilus is fled to Athens 
Upon a fiery dragon, and 'tis thought 
A' never can returne. 



i66 tirtje 315roken l^eart [acth. 

Bass. Grant it, Apollo ! 55 

Phul. Moreover, please your lordship, 'tis 
reported 
For certaine, that who ever is found jealous 
Without apparant proofe that's wife is wanton 
Shall be divorc'd : but this is but she-newes ; 
I had it from a midwife. I have more yet. 60 

Bass. Anticke, no more ! Ideots and stupid 
fooles 
Grate my calamities. Why to be faire 
Should yeeld presumption of a faulty soule ? 
Looke to the doores. 

Phul. \aside'\ . The home of plenty crest him. 

Exit Phul. 
Bass. Swormes of confusion huddle in my 
thoughts 65 

In rare distemper. Beauty ! O, it is 
An unmatcht blessing or a horrid curse. 

Enter Penthea and Grausis, an old lady. 
Shee comes, she comes ! so shoots the morning 

forth. 
Spangled with pearles of transparent dew. 
The way to poverty is to be rich; 70 

As I in her am wealthy, but for her 
In all contents a bankrupt. — Lov'd Penthea ! 
How fares my hearts best joy ? 

Grausis. Insooth, not well, 

She is so over-sad. 



75 



Scene l] ^\)t HBrohcu l^catt - 1 6 7 

Bass. Leave chattering, mag-pye. — 

Thy brother is return'd, sweet, safe and hon- 

oiir'd 

With a triumphant victory ; thou shalt visit him: 
We will to court, where, if it be thy pleasure. 
Thou shalt appeare in such a ravishing lustre 
Of jewels above value, that the dames 
Who brave it there, in rage to be out-shin'd, 8o 
Shall hide them in their closets, and unseene 
Fret in their teares; whiles every wondring eye 
Shall crave none other brightnesse but thy pres- 
ence. 
Choose thine owne recreations ; be a queene 
Of what delights thou fanciest best, what com- 
pany, 85 
What place, what times ; doe any thing, doe all 

things 
Youth can command ; so thou wilt chase these 

clouds 
From the pure firmament of thy faire lookes. 
Grau. Now 'tis well said, my lord. What, 
lady ! laugh. 
Be merry; time is precious. 

Bass. Furies whip thee ! 

Penthea. Alas, my lord, this language to your 
hand-maid 
Sounds as would musicke to the deafe ; I need 
No braveries nor cost of art to draw 



90 



1 68 (iri)f »OUrU ll)fait (Act II. 

The vvhitcncssc of my name into offence ; 

Let such, if any such there are, who covet 95 

A curiosity of admiration, 

By laying out their plenty to full view, 

Appeare in gawdy out-sides ; my attires 

Shall suit the inward fashion of my minde ; 

From which, if your opinion nobly plac'd, 100 

Change not the livory your words bestow, 

My fortunes with my hopes are at the highest. 

B{iss. This house, me thinkes, stands some- 
what too much inward. 
It is too melancholy ;' wee' 11 remove 
Nearer the court : or what thinks my Penthea 105 
iM' the delightfull island we command ? 
Rule me as thou canst wish. 

Pt/i. I am no mistresse ; 

Whither you please, 1 must attend; all wayes 
Are alike pleasant to me. 

Gnm. Island! prison; 

A prison is as gaysome : wee'll no islands : no 

Marry, out upon 'cm ! whom shall we see there .? 
Sea-s2;uls and porpiscis and water-rats 
And crabs and mewes and dogfish ! goodly geere 
For a young ladies dealing, or an old ones ! 
On no termes islands; I'le be stew'd first. 

Bdss. [(isi(lt\to Grail.']. Cjrausis, "5 

You are a jugling bawd. — This sadnesse, sweet- 
est, 



scfnki.i X!ly\)t W>xo\\m imtt 169 

Hccomcs not youthfull blood. — [JsirJe to Grau.'] 

I'll- Ikivc you pouiulcd. — 
For my sake put on a more chiarciull mirth; 
'I'hou't marrcr thy chcckcs, and make me old in 

griefef^. — 
\ Aside to Gruu.\ Damnable bitch-foxc ! 

Gran. I ^nn lhi("ke of hearing 120 

Still, when the wind blowes southerly. What 

thinke'ee, 
If your fresh lady breed young bones, my lord ? 
Wood not a chopping boy d'ec good at heart ? 
IJut, as you said — 

Bass. \ aside to Grau.^. Tie spit thee on a 
stake, 
Or chop thee into collops ! 

Grau. Pray, speake louder. i2<; 

Sure, sure, the wind blowes south still. 

Pen. I'hou prat'st madly. 

Bass. 'Tis very hot; 1 sweat extreamely. — 
Now ? 

[Rt'-'] Enter P hulas. 

PhuL A heard of lords, sir. 

Bass. Ha ? 

PhuL A Hock of ladies. 

Bass. Where? 

PhuL Shoalds of horses. 

Bass. Peasant, how ? 

PhuL Carochcs 



1 70 ® l)r Brohrn il)rait [act n. 

In drifts — th' one enter, th' other stand with- 
out, sir. 130 
And now I vanish. Exit PhuLis. 

Enter PropbiluSf Hcmophil^ GroneaSy Cbristalla and 
Philcna. 

Proph'ilus. Noble Rassancs ! 

Bass. Most welcome Prophilus, ladies, gen- 
tlemen ; 
To all my heart is open ; you all honour me, — 
[AsideJ\ A tympany swels in my head al- 
ready, — 
Honour me bountifully. — [y/f/VA.] How they 

flutter, 135 

Wagtailes and jayes together ! 

Proph. From your brother, 

By virtue of your love to him, 1 require 
Your instant presence, fairest. 

Pfu. He is well, sir ? 

Proph. The gods preserve him ever : yet, deare 
beauty, 
I finde some alteration in him lately, ,40 

Since his returne to Sparta. — My good lord, 
I pray use no delay. 

Bass. We had not needed 

An invitation, if his sisters health 
Had not fallen into question. — Hast, Penthea, 
Slacke not a minute: lead the way,good Prophilus; 145 
rie follow step by step. 



Scene IL] tCt|e mOttXl i^^tditt 'l J I 

Proph. Your arme, faire madam. 

Exeunt omnes sed Bass, cJ' (irau. 

Bass. One word with your old bawdship: th' 
hadst bin better 
Raild at the sinnes thou worshipst then have 

thwarted 
My will : rie use thee cursedly. 

Grau. You dote, 

You are beside yourselfe. A politician 150 

In jcalousie ? No, y'are too grossc, too vulgar. 
Pish, teach not me my trade ; I know my cue: 
My crossing you sinks me into her trust, 
By which I shall know all: my trade's a sure one. 

Bass. P'orgive me, Grausis, twas consideration 155 
I rellisht not j but have a care now. 

Grau. Feare not, 

I am no new-come-too*t. 

Bass, Thy life's upon it. 

And so is mine. My agonies are infinite. 

Exeunt omnes. 

SCAENE 2. [The palace. Ithocles' apartment.'] 
Enter Ithocles alone. 
Ithocles. Ambition ! 'tis of vipers breed ; it 
knawes 
A passage through the wombc that gave it mo- 
tion. 

148 iinnci. G-D, saints. 155 Grauiii. Q, GraiuU. 



1 7 2 grijc Brohcu C^cart [act n. 

Ambition, like a scclcd dove, mounts upward, 

Higher and higher still to pearch on clouds, 

But tumbles headlong downe with heavier ruine. 5 

So squibs and crackers flye into the ayre, 

Then, onely breaking with a noyse, they vanish 

In stench and smoke. Morality appli'd 

To timely practice keeps the soule in tune, 

At whose sweet musicke all our actions dance : 10 

But this is forme of books and schoole-tradi- 

tion ; 
It physicks not the sicknesse of a minde 
Broken with griefes : strong feavers are not eas*d 
With counsell, but with best receipts and 

meanes : 
Meanes, speedy meanes and certaine j that's the 

cure. 15 

Enter Armostes and Crotolon. 

Armostcs. You sticke. Lord Crotolon, upon a 
point 
Too nice and too unnecessary. Prophilus 
Is every way desertfull. I am confident 
Your wisdome is too ripe to need instruction 
From your sonnes tutillage. 

Crotolon. Yet not so ripe, 20 

My Lord Armostes, that it dares to dote 
Upon the painted meat of smooth pcrswasion. 
Which tempts me to a breach of faith. 

Itho. Not yet 



Scene IL] ^\)t 'BtO^tXt ^t^Xt 173 

Rcsolv'd, my lord ? Why, if your sonnes consent 
Ik' so availcahlc, wcc'll write to Athens 25 

For his repairc to Sparta. The kings hand 
Will joyne with our desires ; he has bcene 
mov'd too't. 

Armo, Yes, and the king himsclfc importun'd 
Crotolon 
For a dispatch. 

Crot. Kings may command ; their wils 

Are lawes not to be questioned. 

Itho. i^y this marriage 30 

You knit an union so devout, so hearty, 
Betweene your loves to me and mine to yours. 
As if mine owne blood had an interest in it ; 
For Prophilus is mine, and 1 am his. 

Crot. My lord, my lord ! — 

Ith, What, good sir ? speak your thoght. 35 

Crot. Had this sincerity beene reall once. 
My Orgilus had not beene now un-wiv'd. 
Nor your lost sister buried in a bride-bed : 
Your unckle here, Armostes, knowes this truth ; 
For had your father Thrasus liv'd, — but peace 40 
Dwell in his grave ! I have done. 

Arrno. Y'are bold and bitter. 

Itho. 'A presses home the injury; it smarts: 
No reprehensions, uncle, 1 deserve 'em. 
Yet, gentle sir, consider what the heat 
Of an unsteady youth, a giddy braine, 45 



174 W\)t ilBiokrn Uncart (actii. 

Cjrccne indiscretion, flattery of greatncsse, 

Rawnesse of judgement, wilfulnesse in folly, 

I'houghts vagrant as the wind, and as uncertaine, 

Might lead a boy in yeeres too : 'twas a fault, 

A capitall fault; for then I could not dive 50 

Into the secrets of commanding love: 

Since when, experience, by the extremities in 

others, 
Hath forc'd me to collect, and, trust me, Crot- 

olon, 
I will redeeme those wrongs with any service 
Your satisfaction can require for currant. 55 

Armo. Thy acknowledgement is satisfaction. 
What would you more ? 

Crot. I'me conquer'd : if Euphrania \ 

Her selfe admit the motion, let it be so. 
I doubt not my sonnes liking. 

Itho. Use my fortunes, 

Life, power, sword, and heart, all are your owne. 60 

Enter Bassanesy Prophilusy Calnnthay Pe?itheay Eu- 
phra?ieay Chrystallay Philemtiy and Grausis. 

Armo. The princesse with your sister. 

Calantha. I present 'ee 

A stranger here in court, my lord ; for did not 
Desire of seeing you draw her abroad. 
We had not beene made happy in her company. 

52 the extremities. G-D, th' extremes. 

56 Thy acknoivledgement . G-D, TJi' acknuwledgment. 



scF.NK II.] ®i)e llBrobcn l^eart i 75 

/tho. You arc a gracious princessc. — Sister, 

wcdlocke 65 

Holds too severe a passion in your nature, 
Which can engrosse all duty to your husband. 
Without attendance on so dearc a mistresse. 
*'ris not my brothers pleasure, I presume, 
T' immure her in a chamber. 

Bassanes. ' Tis her will ; 7° 

Shee governcs her ownc hourcs. Noble Ithocles, 
We thanke the gods for your successe and welfare. 
Our lady has of late beene indispos'd, 
I'^lse we had waited on you with the first. 

Itho. How does Penthea now ? 

Penthca. You best know, brother, 75 

from whom my health and comforts are deriv'd. 

Bass. \aside\, 1 like the answer well : 'tis sad 
and modest. 
There may he tricks yet, tricks. — Have an 
eye, Grausis ! 

Cal. Now, Crotolon, the suit we joyn'd in 
must not 
F'all by too long demurre. 

Crot. *Tis granted, princessc, 80 

For my part. 

Armo, With condition, that his sonnc 

Favour the contract. 

Cal. Such delay is casie. 

The joyes of marriage make thee, Prophilus, 



i;^ d)f 113roUrn ll>rart iac^h. 

A proud Jcsfivcr of Kuphraiiiii's love, 
And her of thy desert. 

Prop/.K Most sweetly gracious ! ^5 

Bass. r\\c joyes of marriage are the heaven 
on earth, 
Life's paradise, great princesse, the soules quiet, 
Sinewes of concord, earthly immortality, 
f.ternity of pleasures ; no restoratives 
Like to a constant woman ! — [^j/VA.] But where 

is she ? 90 

*Twould puzzle all the gods but to create 
Such a new monster. ^ — I can speake by proofe. 
For 1 rest in J^'.li/.ium ; 'tis my happinesse. 

Crot. Euphrania, how are you resolv'd, speake 
freely. 
In your affections to this gentleman ? 95 

Euphr<itif(i. Nor more nor lesse then as his 
love assures me. 
Which, if your liking with my brothers warrants, 
I cannot but approve in all points worthy. 
Crot. So, so, I know your answer. 
Jtho. *T had bin pitty 

To sunder hearts so equally consented. 100 

Enter Hemophill. 
Hemophil. The king. Lord Ithocles, com- 
mands your presence ; 
And, fairest princesse, yours. 

CaL We will attend him. 



scKNK III ^fje llBroken l^eart 177 

Enter (ironcai. 
Groncas. Where arc the lords? All must unto 
the king 
Without delay: the Prince ofArgos — 

Cal. Well, sir. 

Gron. Is comming to the court, sweet lady. 
(juL How ! 105 

The Prince of Argos ? 

Gron. 'T'was my fortune, madam, 

T'enjoy the honour of these hap{)y tidings. 
It ho. iV-nthea! 
Pen. Brother ! 

Jtho. Let me an howre hence 

Meet you alone within the palace grove; 
I have some secret with you. — i^rethe, friend, no 
Conduct her thither, and have speciall care 
The walks be clear'd of any to disturbe us. 
Proph. 1 shall. 
liass. How's that? 

Itho. Alone, J^ray he alone. — 

I am your creature, princesse. — On, my lf;rds! 

Exeunt \jxcept Bassanes.'^ 
Bassanes. 
Bass. Alone! alone! what meancs that word 

*' alone"? 115 

Why might not I he there? — hum! — hee's 

her brother; 
Brothers and sisters are but flesh and blood, 



178 iEljf BroUfu ll)fart [actii. 

And this same whorson court case is temptation 
To a rebellion in the veines. — Besides, 
His fine friend Prophilus must be her guardian. 120 
Why may not he dispatch a businesse nimbly 
Before the other come? — or — pandring, pan- 

dring 
For one another, bee't to sister, mother, 
Wife, coiiz-en, any thing, 'mongst youths of 

mettall 
Is in reijuest. It is so — stubborne fate: 125 

But if I be a cuckold, and can know it, 
I will be fell, and fell. 

[^Re-^t7jfrr Gronetis. 
Gron. My lord, y'are call'd for. 

Bass. Most hartily 1 thanke ye. Where's my 

wife, pray ? 
Gron. Retir'd amongst the ladies — 
Bass. Still I thanke 'ee : 

There's an old waiter with her; saw you her too ? 130 
Gron. She sits i'th presence lobby fast asleepe, 

sir. 
Bass. Asleepe ? sleepe, sir ! 
Gr^on. Is your lordship troubled ? 

You will not to the king? 

Bass. Your humblest vassaile. 

Grofi. Your servant, my good lord. 
Bass. I wait your footsteps. 

Exeunt. 



scrNK ITT] tE^l)c 115coUcn Uncart " » 79 

SCAENE TIIK THIRD. [The gardens of 
the palace.'\ 

Prophilus, Penthea. 
Prophilus. In this walkc, lady, will your brother 
liiui you : 
And, with your favour, give me leave a little 
To worke a preparation. In his fashion 
I have observ'd of late some kind of slacknesse 
To such alacrity as nature 5 

And custome tooke delight in : sadnesse growcs 
Upon his recreations, which he hoards 
In such a willing silence, that to (juestion 
The grounds will argue [litilc] skill in friendship. 
And lesse good manners. 

PiHthm. Sir, I 'me not inquisitive lo 

Of secrecies without an invitation. 

Proph. With pardon, lady, not a sillable 
Of mine implyes so rude a sense j the drift — 
Enter Orgilus, \_disguised as before, ] 
Proph. Doe thy best 
To make this lady merry for an houre. Exit. ,5 
Orgilus. Your will shall be a law, sir. 
/j^,„ Prethc, leave me \ 

I have some private thoughts I would account 

with : 
Use thou thine owne. 

5 G-D supplicu [ontcj after nature. 9 iitlU. Supplied by G-D. 



i8o ^\)t llBrobfit H^rart iacth. 

Org. Speake on, faire nimph, our soules 

Can dance as well to musicke of the spheares 
As any's who have feasted with the gods. 20 

Pen. Your schoole terms are too troublesome. 

Org. What heaven 

Retines mortality from drosse of earth 
But such as uncompounded beauty hallowes 
With glorified perfection. 

Pen. Set thy wits 

In a lesse wild proportion. 

Org. Time can never ^5 

On the white table of unguilty faith 
Write counterfeit dishonour ; turne those eyes, 
The arrowes of pure love, upon that fire 
Which once rose to a flame, perfum'd with 

vowes 
As sweetly scented as the incense smoking 30 

On Vesta's altars, 

the holiest odours, virgin teares, 
sprinkled, like dewes, to feed 'em, 
And to increase their fervour. 

Pen. Be not franticke. 

Org. All pleasures are but meere imagination, 35 
Feeding the hungry appetite with steame, 

31-33 On Vesta s . . . to feed ''em. So arranged by G. In 
Q this passage appears thus: 

The holiest Artars, Virgin teares (like 
On Vesta i odours) sprinkled dewes to feed 'cm, 



sctvL III] ^{)t broken l^eart i8i 

And sight of banquet, whilst the body pines, 

Not relishing the reall tast of food : 

Such is the leannesse of a heart divided 

From entercourse of troth-contracted loves ; 40 

No horror should deface that precious figure 

Seal'd with the lively stampe of equall soules. 

Pen. Away ! some fury hath bewitch'd thy 
tongue : 
The breath of ignorance that flycs from thence, 
Ripens a knowledge in me of afflictions 45 

Above all suffrance. — Thing of talke, be gone ! 
Be gone, without reply ! 

Org. }k^ just, Penthea, 

In thy commands : when thou send'st forth a 

dofjme 
Of banishment, know first on whom it lights. 
Thus I take off the shrowd, in which my cares 5° 
Are folded up from view of common eyes. 

\_Throzvs off hii scholar'' i dress.^ 
What is thy sentence next ? 

Pen. Rash man, thou layest 

A blemish on mine honour, with the hazard 
Of thy too desperate life: yet I professe. 
By all the lawes of ceremonious wedlocke, 55 

I have not given admittance to one thought 
Of female change since cruelty enforc'd 
Divorce betwixt my body and my heart : 
Why would you fall from goodnesse thus ? 



i82 iTlif 13rciUfn l^rart ia.vh. 

Ore. O^ rather 

Examine nic how 1 coiiKl h\ c to say 60 

I have bin n\uoh, much wrong'd. *Tis tor thv 

sake 
I put on this inipostiirc : licarc IVnthoa, 
If thv sot't bosonic he not tiunM to marble, 
Thou't pittv our oalaniitics ; mv interest 
Conhrmes me thou art mine still. 

Rrj. Lend yonv hand; 65 

With both ot" mine 1 elaspe it thus ; thus kisse 

'it; 
Thus kneele before ve. 

Ofj. You instruet mv dutv. 

Ptn. ^Ve mav stand up. Ha\e vou ought else 
to urge 
Of new demand ? As for the old, forget it; 
'Tis buried in an everlasting silenee, "o 

And shall be, shall be e\ er ; what more would 
ye ? 

Org. I would possesse mv wife ; the equity 
Of vcrv reason bids me. 

P.:;;.' Is that all ? 

Org. Why 'tis the all of me my selfe. 

Ptn. Remove 

Your steps some distance from me; at this space 75 
A few words 1 dare change ; but tirst put on 
Your borrowed shape. 

Org. You are obey'd ; 'tis done. 



scrur HI] ^{j0 )3roken t^eart 183 

Pen. ffow, r)rgilus, by promise I was thine 
The heavens fJr;e witnesse ; they can witnesse 

too 
A ra[je fjonc on my triith ; hov/ J doe love thee 80 
Yet, Ormolus, and yet, must best appeare 
Jn tendering thy freedome ; for f find 
'J he constant preservation of thy merit, 
i>y thy not daring to attempt my fame 
With injury of any loose conceit, 85 

Which might give deeper wounds to discontents, 
(jf^ntinue this faire race; then, though J cannot 
Adde to thy comfort, yet 1 shall more often 
Remember from what fortune I am fallen, 
And pitty mine owne ruine. — Jvive, live happy, 90 
Ha[;{jy in thy next choyce, that thou maist 

people 
'J'his barren age wjth vertues in thy issue ! 
And f), when thou art married, thinke on mc 
Wjth mercy, not contempt ! J hope thy wife, 
Hearing my story, will not scorne my fall. 95 

Now let us part. 

(Jry. Part' yet advise thee better: 

I^enthea is the wife to Cjrgilus, 
And ever shall be. 

Pen. Never shall nor will. 

Org. How ! 

Pen. Heareme ; in a word J'le tell thee why: 
The virgin dowry which my birth bcstow'd 100 



1 84 tIPtie 315roktn l^eart [act n. 

Is ravish'd by another: my true love 
Abhorres to thinke that Orgilus deserv'd 
No better favours then a second bed. 

Org. I must not take this reason. 

Pen. To confirme it; 

Should I outlive my bondage, let me meet 105 

Another worse then this and lesse desir'd, 
If of all the men alive thou shouldst but touch 
My lip or hand againe ! 

Org. Penthea, now 

I tell 'ee, you grow wanton in my sufferance : 
Come, sweet, th'art mine. 

Pen. Uncivill sir, forbeare, 110 

Or I can turne affection into vengeance j 
Your reputation, if you value any, 
Lyes bleeding at my feet. Unworthy man. 
If ever henceforth thou appeare in language. 
Message, or letter to betray my frailty, 115 

Pie call thy former protestations lust. 
And curse my starres for forfeit of my judge- 
ment. 
Goe thou, fit onely for disguise and walkes. 
To hide thy shame: this once I spare thy life. 
I laugh at mine owne confidence; my sorrowesizo 
By thee are made inferiour to my fortunes. 
If ever thou didst harbour worthy love, 
Dare not to answer. My good Genius guide me, 

107 the. G-D omits. 



Scene III.] tCfje BrOfeeU ^tUtt 1 85 

That I may never see thee more ! — Goe from 
me. 
Org. V [1] e teare my vaile of politicke French 

off, ,25 

And stand up like a man resolv'd to doe : 
Action, not words, shall shew me. O Penthea! 

Exif Orgilus. 
Pen. 'A sigh'd my name, sure, as he parted 
from me : 
I feare I was too rough. Alas, poore gentleman, 
'A look'd not like the ruines of his youth, 130 

But like the ruines of those ruines. Honour, 
How much we fight with weaknesse to preserve 
thee ! 

Enter Bassanes and Grausis. 
Bassanes. ¥ye on thee ! damb thee, rotten 
magat, damb thee ! 
Sleepe ? sleepe at court ? and now ? Aches, con- 
vulsions, 
Impostumes, rhemes, gouts, palsies, clog thy 

bones 13^ 

A dozen yeeres more yet ! 

Grausis. Now y'are in humors. 

Bass. Shee's by her selfe, there's hope of that j 
shee's sad too ; 
Shee*s in strong contemplation ; yes, and fixt : 
The signes are wholesome. 

Grau. Very wholsome, truly. 



i86 iTlif 13rohfn Drart (ac-tii. 

Bass. Hold vour chops, night marc ! — L;uiv, 

come ; vour brother 140 

Is carried to his closet ; vou must thither. 

Ft-n. Not well, mv lord ? 

Biiss. A sudden fit; 'twill off; 

Some surfeit or disorder. — How doest, deerest ? 

Pcft. Your newes is none o' th' best, 
[^f-] cfittT Propbilus. 

Prop}?. The chiete of men, 

The excellentest Ithocles, desires 145 

Your presence, madam. 

Bass. We are hasting: to him. 

PtTi. In vainewe labour in this course of life 
To piece our journey out at length, or crave 
Respite oi breath ; our home is in the grave. 

Bass. Perfect philosophy: then let us care 150 
To live so that our reckonings may fall even 
When w'are to make account. 

Prop}?. He cannot feare 

Who builds on noble grounds : sicknesse or paine 
Is the deservers exercise ; and such 
Your vertuous brother to the world is knowne. 155 
Speake comfort to him, ladv ; be all gentle : 
Starres fall but in the grossenesse of our sight; 
A good man dying, th' earth doth lose a light. 

Exeunt omnes, 

150-152 then let . . . account. G-D gives this to PcnthtM. 



ACTUS TERTIUS: SCAENA PRIMA. 

\T^he study of "Tecnicus.l 

Enter Tecnicusy and Orgilus in his owne shape. 

Tecnicus. Be well advis'd; let not a resolu- 
tion 
Of giddy rashncssc choake the breath of reason. 

Orgilus. It shall not, most sage master. 

Teen. I am jealous : 

For if the borrowed shape so late put on 
Inferr'd a consequence, we must conclude 5 

Some violent designe of sudden nature 
Hath shooke that shadow (jff, to flye upon 
A new-hatch'd execution. Orgilus, 
Take heed thou hast not, under our integrity, 
Shrowded unlawfull plots : our mortall eyes 10 

Pierce not the secrets of your hearts j the gods 
Are onely privie to them. 

Org. Learned Tecnicus, 

Such doubts are causelesse ; and to cleere the 

truth 
From misconceit, the present state commands 

me. 
The Prince of Argos comes himselfe in person 15 
In quest of great Calantha for his bride, 

1 1 hearti. G-D, heart. 



1 88 ®l;e llBrohcn Uncart iact m. 

Our kingdomes heire ; besides, mine onely sister 

Euphrania is dispos'd to Prophilus ; 

Lastly, the king is sending letters for me 

To Athens for my quicke repaire to court : 20 

Please to accept these reasons. 

Teen. Just ones, Orgilus. 

Not to be contradicted : yet beware 
Of an unsure foundation; no faire colours 
Can fortifie a building faintly joynted. 
I have observ'd a growth in thy aspect 25 

Of dangerous extent, sudden, and, looke too*t ! 
I might adde certaine — 

Org. My aspect ? Could art 

Runne through mine inmost thoughts, it should 

not sift 
An inclination there more then what suited 
With justice of mine honour. 

Teen. I beleeve it. 30 

But know then, Orgilus, what honour is : 
Honour consists not in a bare opinion 
By doing any act that feeds content ; 
Brave in appearance, 'cause we thinke it brave : 
Such honour comes by accident, not nature, 35 

Proceeding from the vices of our passion, 
Which makes our reason drunke. But reall 

honour 
Is the reward of vertue, and acquir'd 
By justice or by valour which for bases 



Scene I] tET^f llBrofeeix f[}tnvt 189 

Hath justice to uphold it. He then failes 40 

In honour, who for lucre [or] revenge 
Commits thefts, murthers, treasons, and adulter- 
ies. 
With such like, by intrenching on just lawes. 
Whose sov'raignty is best preserved by justice. 
Thus, as you see how honour must be grounded 45 
On knowledge, not opinion, — for opinion 
Relyes on probability and accident. 
But knowledge on necessity and truth, — 
I leave thee to the fit consideration 
Of what becomes the grace of reall honour, 50 

Wishing successe to all thy vertuous meanings. 
Org. The gods increase thy wisdome, reverend 
oracle. 
And in thy precepts make me ever thrifty ! 

Exii Org. 
Teen. I thanke thy wish. — Much mystery of 
fate 
Lyes hid in that mans fortunes ; curiosity 55 

May lead his actions into rare attempts; 
But let the gods be moderators still; 
No humane power can prevent their will. 

Enter Armostes. 
From whence come 'ee ? 

Armostes. From King Amyclas, — pardon 
My interruption of your studies. — Here, 60 

41 \or\ So G-D. Q, of. 



190 ®l)r 315]t:okcn Uncart iactiii. 

In this seal'd box, he sends a treasure deare 
To him as his crowne ; 'a prayes your grav^ity 
You would examine, ponder, sift, and bolt 
The pith and circumstance of every tittle 
The scroll within containes. 

Teen. What is't, Armostes ? 65 

Anno, It is the health of Sparta, the kings life, 
Sinewes and safety of the common-wealth ; 
The summe of what the oracle deliver'd 
When last he visited the propheticke temple 
At Delphos : what his reasons are for which 70 
After so long a silence he requires 
You counsaile now, grave man, his majesty 
Will soone himselfe acquaint you with. 

Teen, Apollo 

Inspire my intellect ! — The Prince of Argos 
Is entertain'd ? 

Artno. He is ; and has demanded 75 

Our princesse for his wife ; which I conceive 
One speciall cause the king importunes you 
For resolution of the oracle. 

Teen. My duty to the king, good peace to 
Sparta, 
And faire day to Armostes ! 

Armo. Like to Tecnicus ! 80 

Exeunt. 



sciN£ II.] tCtje llBrofeen l^eart 191 

[SCENA SECUNDA. Ithodes' apartment in the 
pa/ace.^ 

Soft musicke. A song. 
Can you paint a thought ? or number 
Every fancy in a slumber? 
Can you count soft minutes roving 
From a dyals point by moving ? 
Can you graspe a sigh ? or, lastly, 5 

Rob a virgins honour chastly? 
Noy O, no ! yet you may 

Sooner doe both that and this. 
This and that, and never misse. 
Then by any praise display 10 

Beauties beauty, such a glory 
As beyond all fate, all story. 
All armes, all arts. 
All loves, all hearts. 
Greater then those, or they, 15 

Doe, shall, and must obey. 

Duringwhich time, enters Prophilus, Bassanes, Penthea, 
Grausis, passing over the stage; Bassanes and Grau- 
sis enter againe softly, stealing to severall stands, 
and listen. 

Bassanes. All silent, calme, secure. — Grausis, 
no creaking ? 
No noyse ? dost heare nothing ? 

Grausis. Not a mouse, 

Or whisper of the winde. 



192 ^Uf BroUrn ll)rart [actiii. 

Bass. The floorc is matted. 

The bed-posts sure are Steele or marble. — Soiil- 

diers 20 

Should not affect, me thinkes, straines so efFem- 

iiuite -, 
Sounds of such delicacy are but fawnings 
Upon the sloth of luxury : they heighten 
Cinders of covert lust up to a flame. 

Grau. What doe you meane, my lord ? Speak 

low ; that gabling 25 

Of yours will but undoe us. 

Bass. Chamber-combats 

Are felt, not hard. 

Pro. [ivithifi^ . 'A wakes. 
Bass. What's that ? 

Ithodes \ivithhr\. Who's there 

Sister? All quit the roome else. 

Bass, 'Tis consented ! 

\Re-'\eutcr Prophilus. 

Proph. Lord Bassanes, your brother would be 
private, 
We must forbeare ; his sleepe hath newly left 

him. 30 

Please 'ee withdraw ? 

Bass. By any meanes; 'tis fit.. 

Proph. Pray, gentlewoman, walke too. 
Grau. Yes, 1 will, sir. 

Exeunt omnes. 



sctNF III ^(je liBrokm i^eart 193 

^T/pe scene openi\; Ithocles discovered in a chayre^ and 
Penlhea. 

hho. Sit nearer, sister, to mc; nearer yet. 
We had one fatJier, in one wrmihe tooke life, 
Were hrr^ught u[) twins together, yet have liv'd 35 
At distance like two strangers. 1 could wish 
That the first pillow whereon J was cradell'd 
Had prov'd to me a grave. 

I*i:nthea. You had heene happy : 

Then had you never knowne that sinne of life 
Which blots all following glories with a ven- 
geance, 40 
For forfeiting the last will of the dead, 
From whom you had your being. 

Ilhfj. Sad Penthea, 

Thou canst not be tof> cruell ; my rash splcene 
Hath with a violent hand pluck'd from thy bosome 
A lover-blest heart, to grind it into dust, 45 

For which mine's now a breaking. 

Pen. Not yet, heaven, 

I doe beseech thee ! first let some wild fires 
Scorch, nr>t cf;nsume it ; may the heat be cherisht 
With desires infinite, but h(;pes impossible ! 

Itho. Wrong'd soule, thy prayers are heard. 

Pen, Here, lo, 1 breathe 50 

A miserable creature, led to ruine 
iiy an unnaturall brother. 

45 lo'ver-bUit. G-D, lovc-blciit. 



194 ®tic llBroken l^eart [acthi. 

Itho. I consume l 

In languishing affections for that trespasse, * 

Yet cannot dye. 

Pen. The handmaid to the wages 

Of country toyle drinkes the untroubled streames 55 
With leaping kids and with the bleating lambes, 
And so allayes her thirst secure, whiles I 
Quench my hot sighes with fleetings of my 
teares. 

Itho. The labourer doth eat his coursest bread, 
Earn'd with his sweat, and lyes him downe to 

sleepe ; 60 

Which every bit I touch turnes in digestion 
To gall as bitter as Penthea's curse. 
Put me to any pennance for my tyranny, 
And I will call thee mercifull. 

Pen. Pray kill me, 

Rid me from living with a jealous husband ; 65 
Then we will joyne in friendship, be againe 
Brother and sister. — Kill me, pray ; nay, will'ee ? 

Itho. How does thy lord esteeme thee ? 

Pen. Such an one 

As onely you have made me ; a faith-breaker, 
A spotted whore : forgive me, I am one 70 

In act, not in desires, the gods must witnesse. 

55 Of . . . streames. So arranged by G. Q, the untroubled of 
country toyle, drinkes streames. 

61 Which. G-D While, digestion. Q, dlsgestion. 
71 act. Q, art. 



Scene u] ^\)t llBrokcit l^cart 195 

Itho. Thou dost be lye thy friend. 

Pen. I doe not, Ithocles ; 

For she that's wife to Orgilus, and lives 
In knowne adultery with Bassanes, 
Is at the best a whore. Wilt kill me now ? 75 

The ashes of our parents will assume 
Some dreadfull figure, and appeare to charge 
Thy bloody gilt, that hast betray'd their name 
To infamy in this reproachfull match. 

Itho. After my victories abroad, at home 80 

I meet despaire ; ingratitude of nature 
Hath made my actions monstrous : thou shalt 

stand 
A deity, my sister, and be worship'd 
For thy resolved martyrdome; wrong'd maids 
And married wives shall to thy hallowed shrine 85 
Offer their orisons, and sacrifice 
Pure turtles crown'd with mirtle, if thy pitty 
Unto a yeelding brothers pressure lend 
One finger but to ease it. 

Pen. O, no more ! 

Jtho. Death waits to waft me to the Stygian 

bankes, 90 

And free me from this chaos of my bondage ; 
And till thou wilt forgive, I must indure. 

Pen. Who is the saint you serve? 

Itho. Friendship, or [nearness] 

93 nearness. Supplied from G-D. 



196 ^^t llBroUm Jl?fart [act m. 

Of birth to any but my sister, durst not 

Have rnovM that question as a secret, sister : 95 

I dare not murmure to my selfe. 

P^n. Let me. 

By your new protestations I conjure 'ee, 
Partake her name. 

Itho. Her name, — *tis, — 'tis, I dare not. 

Pin. All your respects are forg'd. 

Itbo. They arc not. — Peace ! 

Calantha is the princesse, the kings daughter, 100 
Sole heire of Sparta. — Me most miserable ! 
Doe I now love thee ? for my injuries 
Revenge thy selfc with bravery, and gossip 
My treasons to the kings eares. Doe; Calantha 
Knowes it not yet, nor Prophilus, my nearest. 105 

Pen. Suppose you were contracted to her, 
would it not 
Split even your very soule to see her father 
Snatch her out of your armes against her will, 
And force her on the Prince of Argos ? 

Itho. Trouble not 

The fountaines of mine eyes with thine owne 

story; no 

I sweat in blood for't. 

Pen. We are reconcil'd : 

Alas, sir, being children, but two branches 

95 (fuestion . . . sister. G-D puts a semicolon after questiotiy 
changes as to 'm, and puts a comma after sister. 



Scene iL] ^\)t Brofeen l^eaw 197 

Of one stockc, 'tis not fit we should divide : 
Have comfort, you may find it. 

Itho. Yes, in thee : 

Onely in thee, Penthea mine. 

Pen. If sorrowcs 115 

Have not too much dull'd my infected braine, 
rie chcere invention for an active straine. 

Itho. Mad man ! why have I wrong'd a maid 
so excellent ! 

Enter Bassanes with a ponyardy Prophilusy Groneas, 
Hemophilic and Grausis. 
Bass. I can forbeare no longer; more, I will 
not: 
Keepe off your hands, or fall upon my point, no 
Patience is tye*d, for like a slow-pac'd asse 
Ye ride my easie nature, and proclaime 
My sloth to vengeance a reproach and property. 
Itho. The meaning of this rudenesse ? 
Proph. Hee's distracted. 

Pen. O my griev'd lord ! 

Grau. Sweet lady, come not neere him 5125 

He holds his perilous weapon in his hand 
To pricke 'a cares not whom, nor where, — see, 
sec, see ! 
Bass. My birth is noble : though the popular 
blast 
Of vanity, as giddy as thy youth. 
Hath rear'd thy name up to bestride a cloud, 130 



198 ^l)c Brol^rn ll)fart iact m. 

Or progresse in the chariot of the sunnc, 

I am no clod of trade, to lackey pride, 

Nor, like your slave of expectation, wait 

The haudy hinges of your dores, or whistle 

For mysticall conveyance to your bed-sports. 135 

Groneas. Fine humors ! They become him. 

Hemophil. How 'a stares. 

Struts, puffes, and sweats : most admirable lunacy ! 

Itbo. But that 1 may conceive the spirit of 
wine 
Has tooke possession of your soberer custome, 
rde say you were unmannerly. 

Pen. Deare brother! 140 

Bass. Unmannerly! — Mew, kitling! — Smooth 
formality 
Is usher to the ranknesse of the blood. 
But impudence beares up the traine. Indeed, 

sir, 
Your fiery mettall or your springall blaze 
Of huge renowne is no sufficient royalty 145 

Xo print upon my forehead the scorne, '' cuck- 
old." 

Itho. His jealousie has rob'd him of his wits; 
'A talkes 'a knowes not what. 

Bass. Yes, and 'a knowes 

To whom 'a talkes ; to one that franks his lust 
In swine-secUrity of bestiall incest. 150 

Itho. Hah, devill I 



Scene II.] ^\)t WtOlXtM fi^tUtt 199 

Briss. I will hallo't, though I blush more 

To name the filthinesse than thou to act it. 

Itho. Monster! \_Drazi;s his szvord.'] 

Proph. Sir, by our friendship — 

Pen. \^y our bloods, 

Will you quite both undoe us, brother? 

Grau. Out on him. 

These are his megrims, firks, and melancholies. 1 5*; 

Hem. Well said, old touch-hole. 

Gron. Kick him out at dores. 

Pen. With favour, let me speake. — My lord, 
what slacknesse 
In my obedience hath deserv'd this rage .? 
Except humility and silent duty 
Have drawne on your unquiet, my simplicity 160 
NeVe studied your vexation. 

Bass. Light of beauty, 

Deale not ungently with a desperate wound ! 
No breach of reason dares make warre with her 
Whose lookes are soveraignty, whose breath is 

balme : 
O that I could preserve thee in fruition 165 

As in devotion ! 

Pen. Sir, may cwQvy evill 

Lock'd in Pandora's box, showre, in your pres- 
ence. 
On my unhappy head, if since you made me 

159 silent. So G-D. Q, sinlcnt. 



200 tlTljc ^roUcn ll;f avt (Act m. 

A partner in your bed, I have bcene faulty 
In one unscemely thought against your honour. 170 
Jtho. Purge not his griefes, Penthea. 
Bass. Yes, say on. 

Excellent creature! — Good, he not a hinderance 
To peace and praise of vertue. — () my senses 
Are charm'd with sounds caelestiall ! — On, 

deare, on ; 
I never gave you one ill word; say, did I ? 175 

Indeed I did not. 

Pen. Nor, by Juno's forehead, 

Was I e're guilty of a wanton error. 
Bass. O goddesse ! let me kneele. 
Grau. Alas, kind an i mall. 

Itho. No, but for pennance. 
Bass. Noble sir, what is it ? 

With gladnesse T embrace it ; yet, pray let not 180 
My rashnesse teach you to be too unmercifull. 
Itho. When you shall shew good proofe that 
manly wisdome. 
Not over-sway'd by passion or opinion, 
Knowes how to lead [your] judgement, then 

this lady, 
Your wife, my sister, shall returne in safety 185 
Home to be guided by you ; but, till first 
I can out of cleare evidence approve it, 
Shee shall be my care. 

184 your. Supplied from G-D. 



Scene II] ^i)t WtOktXl fQtm 201 

Bass, Rip my bosome up, 

rie stand the execution with a constancy : 
This torture is unsufferablc. 

Itho. Well, sir, 190 

I dare not trust her to your fury. 

Bass. But 

Penthea sayes not so. 

Pen. She needs no tongue 

To plead excuse who never purpos'd wrong. 

He/n. Virgin of reverence and antiquity, 
Stay you behind. 19S 

Gron, The court wants not your diligence. 
Exeunt omnes, sed Bass. ^ Graus. 

Grau. What will you doe, my lord ? my la- 
dy's gone ; 
I am deny'd to follow. 

Bass. I may see her. 

Or speake to her once more. 

Grau. And feele her too, man ; 

Be of good cheare, she's your owne flesh and 

bone. ^°° 

Bass. Diseases desperate must find cures alike : 
She swore she has bccne true. 

Grau. True, on my modesty. 

Bass. Let him want truth who credits not her 
vowes ! 
Much wrong I did her, but her brother infinite; 
Rumor will voyce me the contempt of manhood, 205 



202 Wi)t Broken l^eart (act m. 

Should I run on thus. Some way I must try 
To out-doe art, and jealousie [dejcry. 

Exeunt omnes. 

SCENA TERTIA. [A room in the palace,'] 

Flourish. Enter AmyclaSy Nearchus leading Calantha, 
ArmosteSf Crotolon, Euphranea, Christalla, Fhile- 
mdy and Amelus. 

Amyclas, Cozen of Argos, what the heavens 
have pleas'd 
In their unchanging counsels to conclude 
For both our kingdomesweale, we must submit to: 
Nor can we be unthankfull to their bounties, 
Who, when we were even creeping to our 

graves, ^ 5 

Sent us a daughter, in whose birth our hope 
Continues of succession. As you are 
In title next, being grandchilde to our aunt, 
So we in heart desire you may sit nearest 
Calantha's love; since we have ever vow'd lo 

Not to inforce affection by our will. 
But by her owne choyce to confirme it gladly. 

Nearchus. You speake the nature of a right 
just father. 
I come not hither roughly to demand 

207 jealousie decry. Emendation made by G-D. Q, cry a jeal- 
ousie. 

5 graves. So Q and G; changed by D in G-D to grave. 



Scene III.] tE^j^e BtOfem ^t^tt 203 

My cozens thraldome, but to free mine owne : 15 
Report of great Calantha's beauty, vertue, 
Sweetnesse, and singular perfections, courted 
All eares to credit what I finde was publish'd 
By constant truth : from which, if any service 
Of my desert can purchase faire construction, 20 
This lady must command it. 

Calantha. Princely sir. 

So well you know how to professe observance 
That you instruct your hearers to become 
Practitioners in duty; of which number 
rie study to be chiefe. 

Near. Chiefe, glorious virgine, *S 

In my devotions, as in all mens wonder. 

Amy. Excellent cozen, we deny no libertie ; 
Use thine owne opportunities. — Armostes, 
We must consult with the philosophers ; 
The businesse is of weight. 

Armostes. Sir, at your pleasure. 3° 

Amy. You told me, Crotolon, your Sonne's 
returned 
From Athens : wherefore comes 'a not to court 
As we commanded ? 

Crotolon. He shall soone attend 

Your royall will, great sir. 

Amy. The marriage 

Betweene young Prophilus and Euphranea, 35 

Tasts of too much delay. 



204 ^\)t llBrofeen i^eart iact m. 

Crot. My lord — 

^my. Some pleasures 

At celebration of It would give life 
To th' entertainment of the prince our kinsman ; 
Our court weares gravity more then we rellish. 

j^rm. Yet the heavens smile on all your high 

attempts, 40 

Without a cloud. 

Crot. So may the gods protect us ! 

Cal. A prince, a subject ? 

Near, Yes, to beauties scepter ; 

As all hearts kneele, so mine. 

Cai. You are too courtly. 

\_Enter~\ to therriy Ithoclesy OrgiluSy Prophilus. 

Ithocles. Your safe returne to Sparta is most 
welcome ; 
I joy to meet you here, and as occasion 45 

Shall grant us privacy, will yeeld you reasons 
Why I should covet to deserve the title 
Of your respected friend ; for without comple- 
ment 
Beleeve it, Orgllus, 'tis my ambition. 

Orgilus. Your lordship may command me, 
your poore servant. 50 

Itho. \aside~\ . So amorously close ? — So 
soone ? — my heart ! 

Prophilus, What sudden change is next ? 

51 close. Q, close close. 



Scene JII.] X!^)^t WlO\itXl fQtUt 205 

Itho. Life to the king, 

To whom I here present this noble gentleman, 
New come from Athens ; royall sir, vouchsafe 
Your gracious hand in favour of his merit. 55 

Crot. ^aside'\. My Sonne preferr'd by Ithocles! 

Jmy. Our bounties 

Shall open to thee, Orgilus ; for instance, — 
Harke in thine eare, — if out of those inventions 
Which flow in Athens, thou hast there ingrost 
Some rarity of wit to grace the nuptials 60 

Of thy faire sister, and renowne our court 
In th' eyes of this young prince, we shall be 

debtor 
To thy conceit j thinke on't. 

Org. Your highnesse honors me. 

Near. My tongue and heart are twins. 

Cal. A noble birth, 

Becomming such a father. — Worthy Orgilus, 65 
You are a guest most wish'd for. 

Org. May my duty 

Still rise in your opinion, sacred princesse ! 

Itho. Euphranea's brother, sir, a gentleman 
Well worthy of your knowledge. 

Near. We embrace him. 

Proud of so deare acquaintance. 

Jmy. All prepare 70 

For revels and disport ; the joyes of Hymen, 
Like Phoebus in his lustre, puts to flight 



2o6 {[Tljf BroUrn ilKart |Act m. 

All mists of dulncssc ; crownc the hourcs with 

gladiicssc ; 
No sounds but musickc, no discourse but mirth. 
Cal. Thine arme, I prethe, Ithoclcs. — 
Nay, good 75 

My lord, keepe on your way ; I am provided. 
Near. I dare not disobey. 
It ho. Most heavenly lady ! Exeunt. 

[SCENA yUARTA. y/ room in the house of 
CrotoloH.^ 

Enter Croto/on, Orgilus, 

Crotolon. The king hath spoke his mind. 

Orgilus. His will he hath ; 

But were it lawfuU to hold plea against 
The power of greatncsse, not the reason, haply 
Such under-shrubs as subjects sometimes might 
Borrow of nature justice, to informe 5 

That licence soveraignty holds without checke 
Over a meeke obedience. 

Crot. How resolve you 

Touching your sisters marriage ? Prophilus 
Is a deserving and a hopefull youth. 

Org. I envy not his merit, but applaud it ; 10 
Could [wish] him thrift in all his best desires, 
And with a willingnesse inleague our blood 
1 1 {wish]. So G-D. Q, with. 



scxNK iv.| nPt)e 5i5roben l^eart 207 

With his, for purchase of full growth in friend- 
ship. 
He never touch'd on any wrong that malic'd 
The honour of our house, nor stirr'd our peace; 15 
Yet, with your favour, let me not forget 
Under whose wing he gathers warmth and com- 
fort, 
Whose creature he is bound, made, and must 
live so. 
Crot. Sonne, sonne, I find in thee a harsh 
condition j 
No curtesie can winne it ; 'tis too ranckorous. 20 
Org. Good sir, be not severe in your con- 
struction ; 
I am no stranger to such easie calmes 
As sit in tender bosomes : lordly Ithocles 
Hath grac'd my entertainment in abundance; 
Too humbly hath descended from that height 25 
Of arrogance and spleene which wrought the 

rape 
On grievM Penthea's purity : his scorne 
Of my untoward fortunes is rcclaim'd 
Unto a courtship, almost to a fawning : 
rie kisse his foot, since you will have it so. 3° 
Crot. Since I will have it so ? Friend, I will 
have it so 
Without our ruine by your politike plots, 

zij courtihip. Q, coutship. 



2o8 tE\)t Wi'olxtn Harare lAcrm. 

Or Wolfe of hatred snarling in your breast. 
You have a spirit, sir, have ye ? a familiar 
That poasts i'th' ayre for your intelligence ? 35 

Some such hobgoblin hurried you from Athens, 
For yet you come unsent for. 

Org. If unwelcome, 

I might have found a grave there. 

Crot. Sure, your businesse 

Was soone dispatch'd, or your mind alter'd 

quickly. 
Org. *Twas care, sir, of my health cut short 

my journey ; 40 

For there a generall infection 
Threatens a desolation. 

Crot. And I feare 

Thou hast brought backe a worse infection with 

thee. 
Infection of thy mind; which, as thou sayst. 
Threatens the desolation of our family. 45 

Org. Forbid it, our deare (jenius! I will 

rather 
Be made a sacrifice on Thrasus monument, 
Or kneele to Ithocles his sonnc in dust. 
Then wooe a fathers curse. My sisters marriage 
With Prophilus is from my heart coniirm'd : 5° 
May I live hated, may I dye despis'd, 
If I omit to further it in all 
That can concerne me ! 



Scene IV.| ^^t liBCOUm ^tUtt 209 

Crot. 1 have hccnc too rough. 

My duty to my king made me so earnest j 
Excuse it (Jrgilus. 

Org. Deare sir, — 

Efitcr to theniy Prophilusy Euphranea^ IthoclcSy Cro- 
tie as f 1 1 cm op hi I. 

Crot. Here comes 55 

Euphraiiea, with Prophilus and Ithocles. 

Org. Most honored ! — ever famous ! 

Ithocles. Your true friend ; 

On earth not any truer. — With smooth eyes 
ivooke on this worthy couple ; your consent 
Can onely make them one. 

Org. They have it. — Sister, 60 

Thou pawn'dst to me an oath, of which ingage- 

ment 
I never will release thee, if thou aym'st 
At any other choyce then this. 

Kuphranea. Deare brother. 

At him or none. 

Crot. To which my blessing's added. 

Org. Which, till a greater ceremony per- 
fect, 65 
Euphranea, lend thy hand ; here, take her, Pro- 
philus : 
Live long a happy man and wife ; and further. 
That these in presence may conclude an omen, 
Thus for a bridall song I close my wishes : 



2IO ariir llBrofem Harare iact m. 

Comforts lastingy loves increasing, 70 

Like soft houres never ceasing ; 

Plenties pleasure^ peace complying 

Without jarresy or tongues envying ; 

Hearts by holy union wedded V 

More then theirs by customs bedded ; jr 

Fruitfull issues ; life so graced. 

Not by age to be defaced, t 

Budding, as the year e ensu^ th, \ 

Every spring another youth : 

All what thought can adde beside 80 

Crowne this bridegroome and this bride! 

Prophilus. You have seal'd joy close to my 
soule : Euphranea, 
Now I may call thee mine. j 

Itho. I but exchange 

One good friend for another. 

Org. If these gallants 

Will please to grace a poore invention 85 

By joyning with me in some slight devise, 
I'le venture on a straine my younger dayes 
Have studied for delight. 

Hemophil. With thankfull willingnesse 

I offer my attendance ; 

Groneas. No endevour 

Of mine shall faile to shew itselfe. 

Itho. We will 90 

All joyne to wait on thy directions, Orgilus. 



Scene V.) XE^)t llBroUeix l^eart 2 i i 

Org. O, my good lord, your favours flow 
towards 
A too unworthy worme ; but as you please; 
I am what you will shape me. 

Itho. A fast friend. 

Crot. I thanke thee, sonne, for this acknowl- 
edgement ; 95 
It is a sight of gladnesse. 

Org. But my duty. Exeunt omnes. 

[SCENA QUINTA Calantha's apartment 
in the palace.^ 

Enter Calanthdy Penthea, Christ allay Philema. 

Calantha. Who e*re would speake with us, 
deny his entrance; 
Be carefull of our charge. 

Christalla. We shall, madam. 

Cal. Except the king himselfe, give none 
admittance; 
Not any. 

Philema. Madam, it shall be our care. 

Exeunt ^Christalla and Philema. Ij^ 

Calantha^ Penthea. 

Cal. Being alone, Penthea, you have granted 5 
The oportunity you sought, and might 
At all times have commanded. 

Penthea. 'Tis a benefit 



212 Wi^t llBrofeen fQtdxt [act m. 

Which I shall owe your goodnesse even in death 

for : 
My glasse of life, sweet princesse, hath few 

minutes 
Remaining to runne downe ; the sands are spent; lo 
For by an inward messenger I feele 
The summons of departure short and certaine. 

Ca/. You feed too much your melancholly. 

Pen. Glories 

Of humane greatnesse are but pleasing dreames 
And shadowes soone decaying: on the stage 15 
Of my mortality my youth hath acted 
Some scenes of vanity, drawne out at length 
By varied pleasures, sweetned in the mixture, 
But tragicall in issue : beauty, pompe. 
With every sensuality our giddinesse 20 

Doth frame an idoll, are unconstant friends 
When any troubled passion makes assault 
On the unguarded castle of the mind. 

Ca/. Contemne not your condition for the 
proofe 
Of bare opinion onely : to what end 25 

Reach all these morall texts? 

Pen. To place before 'ee 

A perfect mirror, wherein you may see 
How weary I am of a lingring life, 
Who count the best a misery. 

Cal. Indeed 



Scene V.J Wi)t WtOktXl l^eHtt 2 1 3 

You have no little cause: yet none so great 30 

As to distrust a remedy. 

Pen. That remedy 

Must be a winding sheet, a fold of lead, 
And some untrod-on corner in the earth. 
Not to detaine your expectation, princesse, 
I have an humble suit. 

Cal. Speake ; I enjoy it. 35 

Pen, Vouchsafe, then, to be my executrix, 
And take that trouble on 'ee to dispose 
Such legacies as I bequeath impartially : 
I have not much to give, the paines are easie; 
Heaven will reward your piety, and thanke it 40 
When I am dead ; for sure I must not live ; 
I hope I cannot. 

Cal. Now, beshrew thy sadnesse; 

Thou turn'st me too much woman. 

Pen. l^aside'j . Her faire eyes 

Melt into passion. — Then I have assurance 
Encouraging my boldnesse. — In this paper 45 

My will was character'd; which you, with 

pardon. 
Shall now know from mine owne mouth. 

Cal. Talke on, prethe ; 

It is a pretty earnest. 

Pen. I have left me 

35 enjoy. So Q and G-D. D suggests ''enjoin.*' W. sub- 
stitutes and for /. 



214 ^\)t llBrofeen fQtntt i act m. 

But three poore jewels to bequeath. The 

first is 
My youth ; for though I am much old in griefes, 50 
In yeares I am a child. 

Cal. To whom that ? 

Pen. To virgin-wives, such as abuse not wed- 
locke 
By freedome of desires, but covet chiefly 
The pledges of chast beds for tyes of love. 
Rather than ranging of their blood ; and next 55 
To married maids, such as.preferre the number 
Of honorable issue in their vertues 
Before the flattery of delights by marriage : 
May those be ever young ! 

Cal. A second Jewell 

You meane to part with. 

Pen. 'Tis my fame, I trust 60 

By scandall yet untouch'd ; this I bequeath 
To Memory, and Times old daughter. Truth. 
If ever my unhappy name find mention 
When I am falne to dust, may it deserve 
Beseeming charity without dishonour. 65 

Cal. How handsomely thou playst with harm- 
lesse sport 
Of meere imagination ; speake the last, 
I strangely like thy will. 

Pen. This Jewell, madam, 

5 1 To ivkom that ? G-D, To whom that [jewel] ? 



scFNE v.] tn^ije 115rofeen i^eart 215 

Is dearely precious to me ; you must use 
The best of your discretion to imploy 
This gift as I entend it. 

CaL Doe not doubt me. 

Pen. 'Tis long agone since first I lost my 
heart : 
Long I have livM without it, else for certaine 
I should have given that too ; but in stead 
Of it, to great Calantha, Sparta's heire, i 75 

By service bound and by affection vowM, 
I doe bequeath in holiest rites of love 
Mine onely brother, Ithocles. 

CaL What saydst thou ? 

Pen, Impute not, heaven-blest lady, to am- 
bition 
A faith as humbly perfect as the prayers 80 

Of a devoted suppliant can indow it : 
Looke on him, princesse, with an eye of pitty; 
How like the ghost of what he late appeared 
A* moves before you. 

CaL Shall I answer here, 

Or lend my eare too grossely ? 

Pen. First, his heart 85 

Shall fall in cynders, scorchM by your dis- 

daine, 
E're he will dare, poore man, to ope an eye 
On these divine lookes, but with low-bent 
thoughts 



2i6 tirije Broken J^eart [Actih. 

Accusing such presumption ; as for words, 
A' dares not utter any but of service : 9° 

Yet this lost creature loves 'ee. — Be a princesse 
In sweetnesse as in blood; give him his doome. 
Or raise him up to comfort. 

Cal, What new change 

Appeares in my behaviour, that thou dar'st 
Tempt my displeasure ? 

Pen. I must leave the world 95 

To revell [in] Elizium, and 'tis just 
To wish my brother some advantage here ; 
Yet, by my best hopes, Ithocles is ignorant 
Of this pursuit. But if you please to kill him. 
Lend him one angry looke or one harsh word, loo 
And you shall soone conclude how strong a 

power 
Your absolute authority holds over 
His life and end. 

Cal. You have forgot, Penthea, 

How still I have a father. 

Pen. But remember 

I am a sister, though to me this brother 105 

Hath beene, you know, unkinde, O, most un- 
kinde ! 

Cal. Christalla, Philema, where are 'ee ? — 
Lady, 
Your checke lyes in my silence. 

96 in. Supplied in G-D 



Scene V.] tKlje ^tOfeen ^tUt 2 1 J 

\^Re-'\enter Christalla and Philema. 
Both. Madam, here. 

Cal. I thinke 'ee sleepe, 'ee drones ; wait on 
Penthea 
Unto her lodging. — \_Aside^ Ithocles ? wrong'd 
lady! 
Pen, My reckonings are made even ; death or 
fate 
Can now nor strike too soone nor force too late. 

Exeunt, 



no 



ACTUS QUARTUS, SCAENA 
PRIMA 

Ithocles apartment in the palace. 
Enter Ithocles and Armostes. 

Ithocles. Forbeare your inquisition : curiosity 
Is of too subtill and too searching nature, 
In feares of love too quicke, too slow of credit : 
I am not what you doubt me. 

Armostes. Nephew, be, then. 

As I would wish; — all is not right, — good 

heaven 5 

Confirme your resolutions for dependance 
On worthy ends which may advance your quiet ! 

Itho. I did the noble Orgilus much injury. 
But gricv'd Pcnthea more: I now repent it; 
Now, uncle, now ; this " now" is now too late : lo 
So provident is folly in sad issue. 
That after-wit, like bankrupts debts, stand tallyed 
Without all possibilities of payment. 
Sure he's an honest, very honest gentleman ; 
A man of single meaning. 

Arm. I belceve it : 15 

Yet, nephew, 'tis the tongue informes our eares ; 
Our eyes can never pierce into the thoughts, 



Scene I.) ^Ift WtO^SitXl ^tUtt 2 1 9 

For they are lodg'd too inward : — but I question 
No truth in Orgilus. — The princesse, sir! 
It ho. The Princesse ? ha ! 

Jrm. With her, the Prince of Argos. 20 

E?iter Ne arc bus leading Calanthay AmeluSy 
Christalldy Philema. 
Nearchus. Great faire one, grace my hopes 
with any instance 
Of livery, from the allowance of your favour; 
This little sparke. — 

\_Attempts to take a ring from her finger. '\ 
Calantha, A toy ! 

Near. Love feasts on toyes, 

For Cupid is a child — vouchsafe this bounty: 
It cannot [be deny'd] . 

Cal. You shall not value, 

Sweet cozen, at a price what I count cheape ; 
So cheape, that let him take it who dares stoope 

for't. 
And give it at next meeting to a mistresse: 
Shee*le thanke him for't, perhaps. 

Casts it to Ithocles. 
Amelus. The ring, sir, is 

The princesses ; I could have tooke it up. 30 

Itho. Learne manners, prethe. — To the 
blessed owner, 
Upon my knees — 

25 \be deny d\ Q, beny'd. 



»5 



220 S^ie )15roben J^eart (act iv. 

Near. Y'are sawcy. 

Cal. This is pretty ! 

I am, belike, a mistresse, — wondrous pretty ! — 
Let the man keepe his fortune, since he found 

it; 
He's worthy on't. — On, cozen! 

Itho. Follow, spaniell ; 35 

rie force 'ee to a fawning else. 

Amel. You dare not. 

Exeunt. Manent Itho. ^ Armost. 
Arm. My lord, you were too forward. 
Itho. Looke 'ee, uncle : 

Some such there are whose liberall contents 
Swarme without care in every sort of plenty ; 
Who, after full repasts, can lay them downe 40 
To sleepe ; and they sleepe, uncle : in which 

silence 
Their very dreames present 'em choyce of plea- 
sures. 
Pleasures — observe me, uncle — of rare object: 
Here heaps of gold, there increments of honors ; 
Now change of garments, then the votes of 

people ; 45 

Anon varieties of beauties, courting. 
In flatteries of the night, exchange of dalliance. 
Yet these are still but dreames : give me felicity 
Of which my senses waking are partakers, 
A reall, visible, materiall happinesse j 50 



Scene I.j ^j^t WtOhtXl f^tUtt 221 

And then, too, when I stagger in expectance 
Of the least comfort that can cherish life : — 
I saw it, sir, I saw it ; for it came 
From her owne hand. 

y/rw. The princesse threw it t'ee. 

Itho. True, and she said — well I remember 
what. 55 

Her cozen prince would beg it. 

Jrm. Yes, and parted 

In anger at your taking on't. 

Itho. Penthea ! 

Oh, thou hast pleaded with a powerfull language ! 
I want a fee to gratifie thy myrit. 
But I will doe — 

j4rm. What is't you say ? 

Itho. In anger, 60 

In anger let him part ; for could his breath. 
Like whirlewinds, tosse such servile slaves as 

licke 
The dust his footsteps print into a vapour. 
It durst not stirre a haire of mine, it should not ; 
I'de rend it up by th' roots first. To be any 

thing 65 

Calantha smiles on, is to be a blessing 
More sacred than a petty — Prince of Argos 
Can wish to equall or in worth or title. 

jlrm. Containe your selfe, my lord : Ixion, 
ayming 



222 tET^e Brofeen f^tntt [act iv. 

To embrace Juno, bosom'd but a cloud, 70 

And begat Centaures : 'tis an useful morall : 
Ambition hatch'd in clouds of meere opinion 
Proves but in birth a prodigie. 

Itbo. I thanke 'ee ; 

Yet, with your licence, I should seeme unchar- 
itable 
To gentler fate, if rellishing the dainties 75 

Of a soules setled peace, I were so feeble 
Not to digest it. 

j^rm. He deserves small trust 

Who is not privy counsellor to himselfe. 
^Re-']e;jUr Near c bus, Orgi/us, and Amelus. 

Near. Brave me ? 

Org, Your excellence mistakes his 

temper ; 
For Ithocles in fashion of his mind 80 

Is beautifull, soft, gentle, the cleare mirror 
Of absolute perfection. 

Amel. Was*t your modesty 

TermM any of the prince his servants " spaniell "? 
Your nurse sure taught you other language. 

Itho. Language ! 

Near. A gallant man at armes is here, a doctor 85 
In feats of chivalry, blunt and rough spoken. 
Vouchsafing not the fustian of civility. 
Which [less] rash spirits stile good manners. 

88 lea. Supplied by G. 



Scene I.] ®t|e BtOfeen f^tM '223 

Itho. Manners ! 

Org. No more, illustrious sir; 'tis matchlesse 

Ithocles. 
Near. You might have understood who I am. 
Itho. Yes, 90 

I did ; else — but the presence calm*d th' af- 
front ; 
Y'are cozen to the princesse. 

Near. To the king too; 

A certaine instrument that lent supportance 
To your collossicke greatnesse — to that king too, 
You might have added. 

Itho. There is more divinity 95 

In beauty then in majesty. 

Arm. O fie, fie ! 

Near. This odde youths pride turnes hereticke 
in loyalty. 
Sirrah ! low mushroms never rivall cedars. 

Exeunt Nearchus ^ Amelus. 
Itho. Come backe ! What pittifull dull thing 
am I 
So to be tamely scoulded at ? Come backe ! 100 
Let him come backe, and eccho once againe 
That scornefull sound of mushrome ! Painted 

colts. 
Like heralds coats, guilt o're with crownes and 

scepters. 
May bait a muzled lion. 



224 ®tie 3l5roben f^tm iact iv. ' 

j^rm. Cozen, cozen, 

Thy tongue is not thy friend. 

Org. In point of honour 105 

Discretion knowes no bounds. Amelus told 

me 
'Twas all about a little ring. 

Itho. A ring 

The princesse threw away, and I tooke up : 
Admit she threw't to me, what arme of brasse 
Can snatch it hence ? No ; could a' grind the 

hoope 110 

To powder, a' might sooner reach my heart 
Then steale and weare one dust on't. — Orgilus, 
I am extreamely wrong'd. 

Org. A ladies favour 

Is not to be so slighted. 

Itho. Slighted ! 

J^rm. Quiet 

These vaine unruly passions, which will render 

ye lis 

Into a madnesse. 

Org. Griefes will have their vent. 

E^Ur Tecnicus. 

Arm. Welcome ; thou com'st in season, rev- 
erend man, 
To powre the balsome of a supplying patience 
Into the festering wound of ill-spent fury. 

118 iupplying, G-D, suppling. 



Scene L] tETJ^f HBtOfeeit ^Qt^tt 22$ ^ 

Org. [mide'\. What makes he here? 

Tecnicus, The hurts are yet but mortall,i2o 

Which shortly will prove deadly. To the king, 
Armostes, see in safety thou deliver 
This seal'd up counsaile ; bid him u^ith a con- 
stancy 
Peruse the secrets of the gods. — O Sparta, 

Lacedemon ! double nam'd, but one 1*5 
In fate: when kingdomes reele, — marke well 

my saw, — 
Their heads must needs be giddy. Tell the king 
That henceforth he no more must enquire after 
My aged head ; Apollo wils it so ; 

1 am for Delphos. 

Arm. Not without some conference 130 

With our great master. 

Teen. Never more to see him ; 

A greater prince commands me. — Ithocles, 

When youth is ripe^ and age from time doth part .^ 
The livelesse trunke shall wed the broken heart. 

Itho. What's this, if understood ? 

Teen. List, Orgilus;i35 

Remember what I told thee long before. 
These teares shall be my witnesse. 

Jrm. 'Las, good man 1 

120 but. G-D preserves, but suggests that "not" may be 
the right word. 



226 XE^t llBroken J^earc (act iv. 

Teen. Let craft with cur teste a while conferre^ 
Revenge proves its owne executioner. 

Org. Darke sentences are for Apollo's priests; 140 
I am not Oedipus. 

Teen. My howre is come ; 

Cheare up the king ; farewell to all. — O Sparta, 
O Lacedemon ! Exit Teen. 

Arm, If propheticke fire 

Have warm'd this old mans bosome, we might 

construe 
His words to fatall sense. 

Itho. Leave to the powers 145 

Above us the effects of their decrees ; 
My burthen lyes within me. Servile feares 
Prevent no great" effects. — Divine Calantha ! 

Arm. The gods be still propitious ! — 

Exeunt ; manet Org. 

Org. Something oddly 

The booke-man prated ; yet 'a talk'd it weeping : 15° 

Let craft with curtesie a while conferre^ 

Revenge proves its owne executioner. 
Conne it again ; for what ? It shall not puzzle me j 
'Tis dotage of a withered braine. — Penthea 
Forbad me not her presence; I may see her, 155 
And gaze my fill : why see her then I may ; 
When, if I faint to speake, I must be silent. 

Exit Org. 



Scene II.] ®lje WtOlSitXt f^tm ilj 

[SCENA SECUNDA. J room in Bassanes' 

house. ~\ 

Enter Bassanesy Grausis, and Phulas. 

Bassanes. Pray, use your recreations ; all the 
service 
I will expect is quietnesse amongst 'ee ; 
Take liberty at home, abroad, at all times, 
And in your charities appease the gods 
Whom I with my distractions have offended. 5 

Grausis. Faire blessings on thy heart ! 

Phulas [aside']. Here's a rare change; 

My lord, to cure the itch, is surely gelded ; 
The cuckold in conceit hath cast his homes. 

Bass. Betake 'ee to your severall occasions, 
And wherein I have heretofore beene faulty, 10 
Let your constructions mildly passe it over ; 
Henceforth I'le study reformation, — more 
I have not for employment. 

Grau. O? sweet man ! 

Thou art the very hony-combe of honesty. 

Phul. The garland of good-will. — Old lady, 
hold up 15 

Thy reverend snout, and trot behind me softly, 
As it becomes a moile of ancient carriage. 

Exeunt ; manet Bass. 

Bass. Beasts, onely capable of sense, enjoy 



20 



228 ®i)e llBroben J^eart (activ. 

The benefit of food and ease with thankfulnesse ; 
Such silly creatures, with a grudging, kicke 

not 

Against the portion nature hath bestowMj 
But men endow'd with reason and the use 
Of reason, to distinguish from the chaffe 
Of abject scarscity the quintescence, 
Soule, and elixar of the earths abundance, 25 

The treasures of the sea, the ayre, nay, heaven, 
Repining at these glories of creation. 
Are verier beasts than beasts ; and of those beasts 
The worst am I ; I, who was made a monarch 
Of what a heart could wish for, a chast wife, 3© 
Endevour'd what in me lay to pull downe 
That temple built for adoration onely. 
And level't in the dust of causelesse scandall. 
But, to redeeme a sacrilege so impious. 
Humility shall powre before the deities 35 

I have incenst, a largesse of more patience 
Then their displeased altars can require : 
No tempests of commotion shall disquiet 
The calmes of my composure. 
Enter Orgilus. 
Orgilus. I have found thee. 

Thou patron of more horrors then the bulke 40 
Of manhood, hoop'd about with ribs of iron. 
Can cramb within thy brest : Penthea, Bassanes, 

36 largesse. Q, largenesse. 



Scene H.] ^^t WtO'kttl f^tUVt 229 

Curst by thy jealousies, — more, by thy dotage, — 
Is left a prey to words. 

Bass. Exercise 

Your trials for addition to my pennance ; 45 

I am resolv'd. 

Org. Play not with misery 

Past cure : some angry minister of fate hath 
Depos'd the empresse of her soule, her reason, 
From its most proper throne ; but, what's the 

miracle 
More new, I, I have seene it, and yet live! 50 

Bass. You may delude my senses, not my 
judgement; 
'Tis anchored into a firme resolution ; 
Dalliance of mirth or wit can ne're unfixe it. 
Practise yet further. 

Org. May thy death of love to her 

Damne all thy comforts to a lasting fast 55 

P'rom every joy of life ! Thou barren rocke. 
By thee we have bee [n] split in ken of harbour. 

Enter IthocleSy Penthea her haire about her eares^ 

Philema, Christ alia. 
Ithocles. Sister, looke up ; your Ithocles, your 
brother, 
Speakes t'ee ; why doe you weepe ? Deere, turne 

not from me : 
Here is a killing sight ; lo, Bassanes, 60 

A lamentable object. 



230 ^^t Broken ^tntt [act iv. 

Org. Man, dost see't ? 

Sports are more gamesome ; am I yet in merri- 
ment ? 
Why dost not laugh ? 

Bass. Divine and best of ladies, 

Please to forget my out-rage ; mercy ever 
Cannot but lodge under a root so excellent : 65 

I have cast off that cruelty of frenzy 
Which once appear'd [imposture] , and then 

jugled 
To cheat my sleeps of rest. 

Org. Was I in earnest ? 

Pen. Sure, if we were all sirens, we should 
sing pittifully. 
And 'twere a comely musicke, when in parts 70 
One sung anothers knell : the turtle sighes 
When he hath lost his mate ; and yet some say 
A* must be dead first : 'tis a fine deceit 
To passe away in a dreame ! indeed, I've slept 
With mine eyes open a great while. No fals- 

hood 75 

Equals a broken faith ; there's not a haire 
Sticks on my head but like a leaden plummet 
It sinkes me to the grave : I must creepe thither. 
The journey is not long. 

Itbo. But thou, Penthea, 

65 root. G-D, roof. 

67 [imposture'^. So G-D. Q, Impostors. 



Scene IL] ^\)t WtO^tXt f!i^tm 23 1 

Hast many yeeres, I hope, to number yet, 80 

E're thou canst travell that way. 

Bass. Let the [sun] first 

Be wrap'd up in an everlasting darknesse. 
Before the light of nature, chiefly formM 
For the whole worlds delight, feele an ecclipse 
So universall. 

Org. Wisdome, looke 'ee, begins 85 

To rave ! — art thou mad too, antiquity ? 

Pen. Since I was first a wife, I might have beene 
Mother to many pretty pratling babes ; 
They would have smil'd when I smilM, and, for 

certaine, 
I should have cry'd when they cry'd : — truly, 

brother, 90 

My father would have pick'd me out a husband. 
And then my little ones had beene no bastards ; 
But 'tis too late for me to marry now, 
I am past child-bearing; 'tis not my fault. 

Bass. Fall on me, if there be a burning Etna, 95 
And bury me in flames ! sweats hot as sulphure 
Boyle through my pores : aflHiction hath in store 
No torture like to this. 

Org. Behold a patience ! 

Lay by thy whyning gray dissimulation. 
Doe something worth a chronicle ; shew justice 100 
Upon the author of this mischiefe ; dig out 

81 sun. Q, swan. 



232 Wl)t llBrofeen l^eart iact iv. 

The jealousies that hatch'd this thraldome first 
With thine owne ponyard : every anticke rapture 
Can roare as thine does. 

Itho. Orgilus, forbeare. 

Bass. Disturbe him not ; it is a talking motion loi 
Provided for my torment. What a foole am I 
To bav/dy passion ! E're I'le speake a word, 
I will looke on and burst. 

Pen, I lov'd you once. 

Org. Thou didst, wrong'd creature, in despite 
of malice ; 
For it I love thee ever. 

Pen. Spare your hand ; no 

Beleeve me, I'le not hurt it. 

Org. Paine my heart to . . . 

[/V«.] Complaine not though I wring it 
hard; I'le kisse it ; 
O 'tis a fine soft palme : harke in thijie eare; 
Like whom doe I looke, prethe.? nay, no whis- 
pering. 
Goodnesse ! we had beene happy : too much 

happinesse 115 

Will make folke proud, they say — but that is 
he ; Poi?its at Ithocles, 

107 baivdy. So (^ and G. Changed by D in G-D to bandy. 

Ill Paine my heart to. Q is corrupt here. G-D omits paine and 
reads My heart too. W, Pain my heart too. 

II2-1Z2 Complaint . . . still Uis he. Q gives this speech to 
Orgilus. 



Scene II.] tETfje HBrofeeH l^eart 233 

And yet he paid for't home ; alas, his heart 

Is crept into the cabinet of the princesse; 

We shall have points and bridelaces. Remember 

When we last gather'd roses in the garden 120 

I found my wits ; but truly you lost yours : 

That's he, and still *tis he. 

Itho. Poore soule, how idely 

Her fancies guide her tongue. 

Bass, [aside]. Keepe in, vexation. 

And breake not into clamour. 

Org. [aside]. She has tutor'd me ; 

Some powerfuU inspiration checks my lazi- 

nesse. — 125 

Now let me kisse your hand, griev'd beauty. 

Pen. Kisse it. 

Alacke, alacke, his lips be wondrous cold ; 
Deare soule, h'as lost his colour ; have 'ee 

scene 
A straying heart ? all crannies, every drop 
Of blood is turn'd to an amethist, 130 

Which married bachelours hang in their eares. 

Org. Peace usher her into Elizium ! — 
If this be madnesse, madnesse is an oracle. 

ExJi Org. 

Itho. Christalla, Philema, when slept my 
sister. 
Her ravings are so wild ? 

Christalla. Sir, not these ten dayes.135 



234 tETlje Brofeen l^eart (act iv. 

Philema. We watch by her continually ; be- 
sides, 
We cannot any way pray her to eat. 
Bass. Oh — misery of miseries ! 
Pen. Take comfort; 

You may live well, and dye a good old man. 
By yea and nay, an oath not to be broken, 140 

If you had joyn'd our hands once in the tem- 
ple, — 
'Twas since my father dyM, for had he livM 
He would have don't, — I must have callM you 

father. 
Oh my wrack'd honour, ruinM by those tyrants, 
A cruell brother and a desperate dotage ! HS 

There is no peace left for a ravish'd wife 
Widdow'd by lawlesse marriage ; to all memory 
Penthea's, poore Penthea's, name is strumpeted: 
But since her blood was seasoned by the forfeit 
Of noble shame with mixtures of pollution, »5o 
Her blood — 'tis just — be henceforth never 

heightned 
With tast of sustenance! Starve; let that ful- 

nesse 
Whose plurisie hath sever'd faith and modesty — 
P'orgive me : O, I faint ! 

Arm. Be not so wilfull, 

Sweet neece, to worke thine owne destruction. 
Itho. Nature 155 



Scene II.] ^\^t llBrOkeit H^tUtt 235 

Will call her daughter monster, — what ! not 

eat? 
Refuse the onely ordinary meanes 
Which are ordain'd for life ? Be not, my sister, 
A murthresse to thy selfe. — Hear'st thou this, 
Bassanes ? 
Bass. Fo ! I am busle : for I have not thoughts 160 
Enow to thinke: all shall be well anon. 
'Tis rumbling in my head : there is a mastery 
In art to fatten and keepe smooth the outside, 
Yes, and to comfort up the vitall spirits 
Without the heipe of food; fumes or perfumes, 165 
Perfumes or fumes. Let her alone ; Tie search out 
The tricke on't. 

Pen. Lead me gently ; heavens reward ye : 
Griefes are sure friends ; they leave, without 

controule. 
Nor cure nor comforts for a leprous soule. 

Exeunt the maids supporti?ig Penthea. 
Bass. I grant t'ee ; and will put in practice 

instantly 170 

What you shall still admire : 'tis wonderfull, 
'Tis super singular, not to be match'd; 
Yet when IVe don't, I've don't ; ye shall all 
thanke mee. Exit Bassanes. 

Arm. The sight is full of terror. 
Itho. On my soule 

165 Q and G-D place a comma ziitx food. 



236 ®l)e 3l5roken f^tm iact iv. 

Lyes such an infinite clogge of massie dul- 

nesse, 175 

As that I have not sense enough to feele it. — 
See, uncle, th'angry thing returnes againe ; 
Shall's welcome him with thunder? We are 

haunted, 
And must use exorcisme to conjure downe 
This spirit of malevolence. 

j4rm. Mildly, nephew. 180 

Enier Nearchus and Amelus, 
Nearchus. I come not, sir, to chide your late 
disorder. 
Admitting that th'inurement to a roughnesse 
In souldiers of your yeares and fortunes, chiefly 
So lately prosperous, hath not yet shooke ofF 
The custome of the warre in houres of leisure ; 185 
Nor shall you need excuse, since y' are to 

render 
Account to that faire excellence, the princesse. 
Who in her private gallery expects it 
From your owne mouth alone : I am a messen- 
ger 
But to her pleasure. 

Itho. Excellent Nearchus, 190 

Be prince still of my services, and conquer 
Without the combat of dispute ; I honour 'ee. 
Near. The king is on a sudden indispos'd, 

177 th"" angry. So G-D. Q, th' augury. 



Scene ILJ ^^t WtCiktW l^eatt 237 

Physicians are call'd for ; 'twere fit, Armostes, 
You should be neere him. 

j^rm. Sir, I kisse your hands. 195 

Exeunt. Manent Nearchus ^ Anielus. 

Near. Amelus, I perceive Calantha's bosome 
Is warm'd with other fires then such as can 
Take strength from any fuell of the love 
I might addresse to her: young Ithocles, 
Or ever I mistake, is lord ascendant aoo 

Of her devotions ; one, to speake him truly, 
In every disposition nobly fashioned. 

Amelus. But can your highnesse brooke to be 
so rivalM, 
Considering th' inequality of the persons ? 

Near. I can, Amelus ; for affections injur'd 205 
By tyrannic or rigour of compulsion. 
Like tempest-threatned trees unfirmely rooted, 
Ne're spring to timely growth : observe, for in- 
stance. 
Life-spent Penthea and unhappy Orgilus. 

Amel. How does your grace determine ? 

Near. To be jealous 210 

In publike of what privately I'le further ; 
And though they shall not know, yet they shall 
finde it. 

Exeunt omnes. 



238 ®l)e 113rohm J^eart iact iv. 

SCENA TERTIA. An apartment in the palace. 

Enter Hemophil and Groneas as leading AmyclaSy and 
placing him in a chayre, followed by Armostes 
Crotolony and Prophilus, 

Amy das. Our daughter is not neere ? 

Armostes. She is retired, sir, 

Into her gallery. 

Amy. Where's the prince our cozen ? 

Prophilus. New walk'd into the grove, my lord. 

Amy. All leave us 

Except Armostes, and you, Crotolon; 
We would be private. 

Proph. Health unto your Majesty ! 5 

Exeunt Prophilusy Hemophil ^ Groneas, 

Amy. What ! Tecnicus is gone ? 

Arm. He is, to Delphos ; 

And to your royall hands presents this box. 

Amy. Unseale it, good Armostes ; therein lyes 
The secrets of the oracle ; out with it : 
Apollo live our patron ! Read, Armostes. 'o 

Arm. The plot in which the vine takes root 
Begins to dry from head to foot ; 
The stocke soone withering^ want of sap 
Doth cause to quaile the budding grape : 
But from the neighboring elme a dew 15 

Shall drop and feed the plot anew. 



Scene III] tKJie llBrofeeH l^eart 239 

Amy. That is the oracle : what exposition 
Makes the philosopher ? 

Arm. This brief one onely : 

The plot is Sparta., the dry^d vine the kingj 
The quailing grape his daughter ; but the 

thing 20 

Of most importance., not to be reveal' d., 
Is a neere prince., the elme ; the rest con- 
cealed. 

Tecnicus. 

Amy. Enough ; although the opening of this 
riddle 
Is but it selfe a riddle, yet we construe 25 

How neere our lab'ring age drawes to a rest : 
But must Calantha quaile too ? that young 

grape 
Untimely budded ! I could mourne for her ; 
Her tendernesse hath yet deserv'd no rigor 
So to be crost by fate. 

Arm. You misapply, sir, — 30 

"With favour let me speake it, — what Apollo 
Hath clouded in hid sense : I here conjecture 
Her marriage with some neighb'ring prince, the 

dew 
Of which befriending elme shall ever strengthen 
Your subjects with a soveraignty of power. 35 

47 too ? So G-D. Q, to ; no mark of punctuation. 



240 tn^^t llBroben J^eart iact iv. 

Crotolon. Besides, most gracious lord, the pith 
of oracles 
Is to be then digested when th'events 
Expound their truth, not brought assoone to 

light 
As utter'd ; Truth is child of Time ; and herein 
I finde no scruple, rather cause of comfort, 40 

With unity of kingdomes. 

Amy. May it prove so. 

For weale of this deare nation ! — Where is 

Ithocles ? — 
Armostes, Crotolon, when this wither'd vine 
Of my fraile carkasse on the funerall pile 
Is fir'd into its ashes, let that young man 45 

Be hedg'd about still with your cares and loves ; 
Much owe I to his worth, much to his serv- 
ice. — 
Let such as wait come in now. 

Arm. All attend here ! 

Enter IthocleSy Calantha, Prophilus, Orgilus, 

Euphranea, Hemophi/y atid Groneas. 
Calantha, Deare sir ! king ! father ! 
Ithocles. O, my royall master ! 

Amy. Cleave not my heart, sweet twins of 
my life's solace, 50 

With your fore-judging feares : there is no phy- 

sicke 
So cunningly restorative to cherish 



Scene III.) tCl)e llBfObett fQtM A^ 

The fall of age, or call backe youth and vigor, 
As your consents in duty : I will shake off 
This languishing disease of time, to quicken 55 

Fresh pleasures in these drooping houres of sad- 

nesse. 
Is faire Euphranea married yet to Prophilus ? 
Crot. This morning, gracious lord. 
Orgilus, This very morning ; 

Which, with your highnesse leave, you may ob- 
serve too. 
Our sister lookes, me thinks, mirthfull and 

sprightly, 60 

As if her chaster fancy could already 
Expound the riddle of her gaine in losing 
A trifle maids know onely that they know not. 
Pish ! prethe, blush not ; 'tis but honest change 
Of fashion in the garment, loose for streight, 65 
And so the modest maid is made a wife : 
Shrewd businesse, is't not, sister? 

Euphranea. You are pleasant. 

Jmy, We thanke thee, Orgilus ; this mirth be- 
comes thee : 
But wherefore sits the court in such a silence ? 
A wedding without revels is not seemely. 70 

Cal. Your late indisposition, sir, forbade it. 
Amy, Be it thy charge, Calantha, to set for- 
ward 
The bridall sports, to which I will be present, — 



242 tETlje Broken J^eart [act iv. 

If not, at least consenting. Mine owne Ithocles, 
I have done little for thee yet. 

Itho. Y'have built me 75 

To the full height I stand in. 

Cal. Now or never 

May I propose a suit ? 

Jmy. Demand, and have it. 

Cal. Pray, sir, give me this young man, and 
no further 
Account him yours then he deserves in all things 
To be thought worthy mine ; I will esteeme him 80 
According to his merit. 

Jmy. Still th'art my daughter, 

Still grow'st upon my heart. Give me thine hand; 
Calantha take thine owne ; in noble actions 
Thou'lt find him firme and absolute. I would not 
Have parted with thee, Ithocles, to any 85 

But to a mistresse who is all what I am. 

Itho. A change, great king, most wisht for, 
cause the sam[e]. 

Cal. Th' art mine. — Have I now kept my 
word ? 

Itho. Divinely. 

Org. Rich fortunes, guard to favour of a 
princesse, 

76 N01V or never. G-D, [aside] Now or never ! — 
89 Rich . . . princesse. G-D, Rich fortunes guard, the favour 
of a princess. fortunes. 2, fortuness. 



Scene III.] XE'\)t llBtofeeu l^ea^t 243 

Rocke thee, brave man, in ever crowned plenty; 90 
Y* are minion of the time ; be thankful! for it. — 
[Jside.] Ho, here's a swinge in destiny — ap- 
parent ! 
The youth is up on tiptoe, yet may stumble. 
Jmy. On to your recreations. — Now con- 
vey me 
Unto my bed-chamber : none on his forehead 95 
Were a distempered looke. 

Omnes. The gods preserve *ee ! 

Cal. [aside to Ith.\ Sweet, be not from my 

sight. 
1th. [aside to CaLI. My whole felicity. 

Exeunt carrying out the king; Orgilus stayes 
Ithocles. 
Org. Shall I be bold, my lord ? 
llljo. Thou canst not, Orgilus ; 

Call me thine owne, for Prophilus must hence- 
forth 
Be all thy sisters ; friendship, though it cease not 100 
In marriage, yet is oft at lesse command 
Then when a single freedome can dispose it. 
Org. Most right, my most good lord, my 
most great lord. 
My gracious princely lord, — I might adde, 
royall. 
Itho. Royall ! a subject royall ? 
Qyg^ Why not, pray, sir ? 105 



244 ^^t llBrofeen l^eart [act iv. 

The soveraignty of kingdomes in their nonage 
Stoop'd to desert, not birth ; there's as much 

merit 
In clearenesse of affection as in puddle 
Of generation : you have conquer'd love 
Even in the loveliest; if I greatly erre not, no 

The Sonne of Venus hath bequeathed his quiver 
To Ithocles his manage, by whose arrowes 
Calantha's brest is open'd. 

Itho. Can't be possible ? 

Org. I was my selfe a peece of suitor once, 
And forward in preferment too; so forward, 115 
That, speaking truth, I may without offence, sir, 
Presume to whisper that my hopes and, harke 'ee, 
My certainty of marriage stood assured 
With as firme footing, by your leave, as any's 
Now at this very instant — but — 

Itho. 'Tis granted : 120 

And for a league of privacy betweene us. 
Read o're my bosome and pertake a secret ; 
The princesse is contracted mine. 

Org. Still, why not ? 

I now applaud her wisdome; when your king- 
dome 
Stands seated in your will secure and setled, 125 
I dare pronounce you will be a just monarch : 
Greece must admire and tremble. 

Itho. Then the sweetnesse 



Scene IIL] tU^^t WtOktU ti^tRtt 245 

Of so imparadis'd a comfort, Orgilus ! 
It is to banquet with the gods. 

Org. The glory 

Of numerous children, potency of nobles, 13° 

Bent knees, hearts pav'd to tread on ! 

Itho, With a friendship 

So deare, so fast as thine. 

Org. I am unfitting 

For office, but for service — 

Itho. Wee'll distinguish 

Our fortunes meerely in the title; partners 
In all respects else but the bed. 

Org. The bed ! 135 

Forefend it Joves owne jealousie, till lastly 
We slip downe in the common earth together ; 
And there our beds are equall, save some monu- 
ment 
To shew this was the king, and this the subject. 
List, what sad sounds are these ? — extremely 

sad ones. 140 

Itho. Sure from Penthea's lodgings. 

Org. Harke ! a voyce too. 

Soft sad musicke. A song. 

Oh, no more, no more, too late 

Sighes are spent ; the burning tapers 

Of a life as chast as fate. 

Pure as are unwritten papers, 145 



246 ®l)e Brofeen fQtwct (act iv. 

j^re burnt out : no heat, no light 

Now remaines ; ' tis ever night. 
Love is dead ; let lovers eyes. 

Locked in endlesse dreames, 

TF extremes of all extremes, 150 

Ope no more, for now Love dyes. 

Now Love dyesy implying 
Loves martyrs must be ever, ever dying, 

Itho. Oh my misgiving heart ! 
Org. A horrid stilnesse 

Succeeds this deathfull ayre ; let's know the rea- 
son: 15s 
Tread softly; there is mystery in mourning. 

Exeunt. 

[SCENA QUARTA. Apartment of Penthea in 
the palace^ 

Enter Christalla and Philemay bringing in Penthea in 
a chairey vaild; two other servants placing two 
chairesy one on the one sidey and the other with an 
engine on the other. The maids sit downe at her 
feet mourning ; the servants goe out ; meet them 
Ithocles and Orgilus. 

Servant \_aside to Orgilus^ . *Tis done ; that 

on her right hand. 
Orgilus. Good : begone. 

^Exeunt servants.^ 
Ithocles. Soft peace inrich this roome. 



Scene IV.] XE^^t WtO^tXt f^tUtt l^J 

Org. How fares the lady ? 

Philema. Dead ! 

Christalla. Dead ! 

Phil. StarvM ! 

Chris, StarvM ! 

Itho. Me miserable! 

Org. Tell us 

How parted she from life ? 

Phil. She caird for musicke, 

And begg'd some gentle voyce to tune a fare- 
well 5 
To life and griefes : Christalla touch'd the lute ; 
I wept the funerall song. 

Chris. Which scarce was ended,' 

But her last breath seal'd up these hollow sounds, 
" O cruell Ithocles and injur'd Orgilus ! " 
So downe she drew her vaile, so dy*d. 

Itho. So dy'd ! lo 

Org. Up ! you are messengers of death ; goe 
from us ; 
Here's woe enough to court without a prompter. 
Away ; and, harke ye, till you see us next. 
No sillable that she is dead. — Away ! 

Exeunt Phil, and Chri, 
Keepe a smooth brow. — My lord, — 

Itho. Mine onely sister ! 15 

Another is not left me. 

Org. Take that chayre ; 



248 ®l)e llBrobm l^rart iact iv. 

rie seat me here in this : betweene us sits 
The object of our sorrowes ; some few teares 
Wee'll part among us ; I perhaps can mixe 
One lamentable story to prepare 'em. ao 

There, there, sit there, my lord. 

It ho. Yes, as you please. 

Ithocles sits downs, and is catcht in the engine. 

What meanes this treachery ? 

Org, Caught, you are caught. 

Young master : 'tis thy throne of coronation. 

Thou foole of greatenesse ! See, I take this vaile ofF; 

Survey a beauty wither'd by the flames 25 

Of an insulting Phaeton, her brother. 
Itho. Thou mean'st to kill me basely. 
Org, I foreknew 

The last act of her life, and train'd thee hither 

To sacrifice a tyrant to a turtle. 

You dream't of kingdomes, did 'ee ? how to 

bosome 30 

The delicacies of a youngling princesse ; 

How with this nod to grace that subtill courtier. 

How with that frowne to make this noble tremble. 

And so forth ; whiles Penthea's grones and tor- 
tures. 

Her agonies, her miseries, afflictions, 35 

Ne're toucht upon your thought ; as for my in- 
juries, 

Alas, they were beneath your royall pitty; 



Scene IV.] tC^t HSrOfeeU fli^t^tt 249 

But yet they liv'd, thou proud man, to confound 

thee : 
Behold thy fate, this Steele ! 

Itho. Strike home! A courage 

As keene as thy revenge shall give it welcome : 40 
But, prethe, faint not ; if the wound close up, 
Tent it with double force, and search it deeply. 
Thou look'st that I should whine and beg com- 
passion. 
As loath to leave the vainnesse of my glories; 
A statelier resolution armes my confidence, 45 

To cozen thee of honour ; neither could I, 
With equall tryall of unequall fortune. 
By hazard of a duell ; 'twere a bravery 
Too mighty for a slave intending murther : 
On to the execution, and inherit 50 

A conflict with thy horrors. 

Org. By Apollo, 

Thou talk'st a goodly language ! for requitall, 
I will report thee to thy mistresse richly : 
And take this peacealong; some few short minutes 
Determin'd, my resolves shall quickly follow 55 
Thy wrathfull ghost ; then, if we tug for mastery, 
Pentheas sacred eyes shall lend new courage. 
Give me thy hand ; be healthfull in thy parting 
From lost mortality ! thus, thus, I free it. 

Sial>s him, 

59 Stabi him. Q, Kih him. 



250 Wf^t 315rofeen l^eart [act iv. 

Itho. Yet, yet, I scorne to shrinke. 
Org, Keepe up thy spirit : 60 

I will be gentle even in blood ; to linger 
Paine, which I strive to cure, were to be cruell. 

^Sfah him again. "^ 
Itho. Nimble in vengeance, I forgive thee ; 
follow 
Safety, with best successe. O may it prosper! — 
Penthea, by thy side thy brother bleeds ; 65 

The earnest of his wrongs to thy forc'd faith. 
Thoughts of ambition, or delitious banquet 
With beauty, youth, and love, together perish 
In my last breath, which on the sacred Altar 
O f a long look'd for peace — now — moves — to 

heaven. 70 

Moritur. 

Org. Farewell, faire spring of manhood ; 

henceforth welcome 
Best expectation of a noble sufFrance : 
rie locke the bodies safe, till what must follow 
Shall be approved. — Sweet twins, shine stars 

for ever ! 
In vaine they build their hopes, whose life is 

shame ; 7^ 

No monument lasts but a happy name. 

Exit Orgilus, 



ACTUS QUINTUS : SCAENA PRIMA. 

A room in Bassanes* house. 

Enter Bassanes alone. 

Bassanes. Athens, to Athens I have sent, the 
nursery 
Of Greece for learning and the fount of knowl- 
edge : 
For here in Sparta there's not left amongst us 
One wise man to direct; we're all turn'd mad- 
caps. 
'Tis said Apollo is the god of herbs ; 5 

Then certainly he knowes the vertue of 'em : 
To Delphos I have sent to ; if there can be 
A helpe for nature, we are sure yet. 
Enter Orgilus. 
Orgilus. Honour 

Attend thy counsels ever! 

Bass. I beseech thee 

With all my heart, let me goe from thee quietly ; lo 
I will not ought to doe with thee, of all men. 
The doublers of a hare, or, in a morning. 
Salutes from a splay-footed witch, to drop 
Three drops of blood at th'nose just and no 
more, 

7 itnt to. G-D, sent too. 12 doublers. G-D, doubles. 



252 Wi)t broken l^eart iact v 

Croaking of ravens, or the screech of owles, 
Are not so boading mischiefe as thy crossing 
My private meditations : shun me, prethe j 
And if I cannot love thee hartily, 
rie love thee as well as I can. 

Org. Noble Bassanes, 

Mistake me not. 

Bass. Phew ! Then we shall be troubled. 
Thou wert ordain'd my plague, heaven make 

me thankfull; 
And give me patience too, heaven, I beseech 
thee. 

Org. Accept a league of amity ; for hence- 
forth, 
I vow by my best Genius, in a sillable. 
Never to speake vexation ; I will study 
Service and friendship with a zealous sorrow 
For my past incivility towards 'ee. 

Bass. Heydey ! good words, good words ! I 
must beleeve 'em. 
And be a coxcombe for my labor. 

Org. Use not 

So hard a language; your misdoubt is cause- 

lesse : 
For instance : if you promise to put on 
A constancy of patience, such a patience 
As chronicle or history ne're mentioned. 
As followes not example, but shall stand 



Scene L] ^^0 HBrOfeeU ^tm 253 

A wonder and a theame for imitation, 35 

The first, the index pointing to a second, 
I will acquaint 'ee with an unmatch'd secret 
Whose knowledge to your griefes shall set a 
period. 
Bass. Thou canst not, Orgilus j 'tis in the 
power 
Of the gods onely ; yet, for satisfaction, 40 

Because I note an earnest in thine utterance, 
Unforc'd and naturally free, be resolute 
The virgin bayes shall not withstand the light- 
ning 
With a more carelesse danger than my con- 
stancy 
The full of thy relation ; could it move 45 

Distraction in a senselesse marble statue, 
It should finde me a rocke: I doe expect now 
Some truth of unheard moment. 

Org. To your patience 

You must adde privacie, as strong in silence 
As mysteries lock'd up in Joves owne bosome. 50 

Bass. A skull hid in the earth a treble age, 
Shall sooner prate. 

Org. Lastly, to such direction 

As the severity of a glorious action 
Deserves to lead your wisdome and your judge- 
ment. 
You ought to yeeld obedience. 



254 ®tie llBrofeen f^tm [act v. 

Bass. With assurance 55 

Of will and thankfulnesse. 

Org. With manly courage 

Please then to follow me. 

Bass. Where e're, I feare not. 

Exeunt omnes. 

SCAENE 2. \A room of state in the palace^ 

Lowd musicke. Enter Groneas and Hemophil leading 
Euphranea ; Christalla and Philema leading Pro- 
phi lus ; Nearchus supporting Calantha ; Crotolony 
and Amelus. Cease loud musicke ; all make a 
stand. 

Calantha. We misse our servant Ithocles and 
Orgilus ; 
On whom attend they? 

Crotolon. My sonne, gracious princesse, 

Whisper'd some new device, to which these 

revels 
Should be but usher ; wherein I conceive 
Lord Ithocles and he himselfe are actors. 5 

Cal. A faire excuse for absence : as for 
Bassanes, 
Delights to him are troublesome ; Armostes 
Is with the king ? 

Crot. He is. 

Cal. On to the dance ! 



Scene II.] ®l)e ^IBtOfent ^tUXt 255 

Deare cozen, hand you the bride; the bride- 

groome must be 
Intrusted to my courtship : be not jealous, 10 

Euphranea; I shall scarcely prove a temptresse. 
Fall to our dance. 

Musicke. Nearchus dances with Euphraneay Prophilus 
with Calanthaj Christalla with Hemophil, Philema 
with Groneas, Dance the first change ; during 
whichy enter Armostes. 

Armostes, The king your father's dead. 

In Calanthd's eare, 
Cal, To the other change. 
Arm. Is't possible ? 

Dance againe. Enter Bassanes, 
Bassanes [whispers Cal.'j, O, madam! 

Penthea, poore Penthea*s starv'd. 

Cal. Beshrew thee ! 

Lead to the next. 

Bass. Amazement duls my senses. 15 

Dance againe. Enter Orgilus. 
Orgilus [whispers Cal.'j . Brave Ithocles is 

murther'd, murther'd cruelly. 
Cal. How dull this musicke sounds ! strike 
;. up more sprightly ; 
Our footings are not active like our heart. 
Which treads the nimbler measure. 

Org. I am thunder-strooke. 

9 Deare. G-D omits. 



256 Wtit Brofeen l^eart [act v. 

Lasf change. Cease musicke. 

Cal, So, let us breath a while : — hath not 
this motion 20 

Rais'd fresher colour on your cheeks ? 

Near. Sweet princesse, 

A perfect purity of blood enamels 
The beauty of your white. 

Cal. We all looke cheerfully : 

And, cozen, *tis, me thinks, a rare presumption 
In any who prefers our lawfull pleasures 25 

Before their owne sowre censure, to interrupt 
The custome of this ceremony bluntly. 

Near. None dares, lady. 

Cal. Yes, yes ; some hollow voyce delivered 
to me 
How that the king was dead. 

Arm. The king is dead. 30 

That fatall newes was mine ; for in mine armes 
He breath'd his last, and with his crowne be- 

queath'd 'ee 
Your mothers wedding ring, which here I tender. 

Crot. Most strange ! 

Cal. Peace crown his ashes ! 

We are queen, then. 35 

Near. Long live Calantha ! Sparta's soveraigne 
queene ! 

Omnes. Long live the queene ! 

21 your. G-D, our. 



Scene II-I tET^C HSrOfeeiT ^tm 257 

Cal. What whispered Bassanes ? 

Bass. That my Penthea, miserable soule, 
Was starv'd to death. 

Cal. Shee's happy ; she hath finishM 

A long and painefuU progresse. — A third mur- 

mure 4° 

PiercM mine unwilling eares. 

Org. That Ithocles 

Was murtherM ; rather butcher'd,had not bravery 
Of an undaunted spirit, conquering terror, 
Proclaim'd his last act triumph over ruine. 

Jrm. How ! murther'd ! 

Cal. By whose hand ? 

Org. By mine ; this weapon 45 

Was instrument to my revenge : the reasons 
Are just and knowne ; quit him of these, and 

then 
Never liv'd gentleman of greater merit, 
Hope, or abiliment to steere a kingdome. 

Crot. Fye, Orgilus ! 

Euphranea. Fye, brother ! 

Cal. You have done it. 50 

Bass. How it was done let him report, the 
forfeit 
Of whose alleagance to our lawes doth covet 
Rigour of justice; but that done it is 
Mine eyes have beene an evidence of credit 
Too sure to be convinc'd. Armostes, rent not 55 



258 tET^e Brobm J^eart [act v. 

Thine arteries with hearing the bare circum- 
stances 
Of these calamities : thou'st lost a nephew, 
A neece, and I a wife : continue man still ; 
Make me the patterne of digesting evils, 
Who can out-live my mighty ones, not shrink- 
ing 60 
At such a pressure as would sinke a soule 
Into what's most of death, the worst of horrors. 
But I have seal'd a covenant with sadnesse. 
And enter'd into bonds without condition 
To stand these tempests calmely j marke me, 

nobles, * 65 

I doe not shed a teare, not for Penthea ! 
Excellent misery ! 

Cal. We begin our reigne 

With a first act of justice: thy confession, 
Unhappy Orgilus, doomes thee a sentence ; 
But yet thy fathers or thy sisters presence 70 

Shall be excus'd : give, Crotolon, a blessing 
To thy lost Sonne : Euphranea, take a farewell. 
And both be gone. 

Crot. \to Org.l. Confirme thee, noble sorrow. 
In worthy resolution. 

Euph. Could my teares speake. 

My griefes were sleight. 

Org. All goodnesse dwell amongst yee : 75 

75 goodnesse. Q, gooddesse. 



Scene II.] ^\)t WtO^XtXl J^eatt 259 

Enjoy my sister, Prophilus ; my vengeance 
Aym'd never at thy prejudice. 

Cai. Now w^ithdraw. 

Exeunt Crotolon, Prophilus ^ Euphranea. 

Bloody relator of thy staines in blood, 

For that thou hast reported him vi^hose fortunes 

And life by thee are both at once snatch'd from 

him, ^o 

With honourable mention, make thy choyce 
Of what death likes thee best ; there's all our 

bounty. 
But to excuse delayes, let me, deare cozen, 
Intreat you and these lords see execution 
Instant before 'ee part. 

JSfear. Your will commands us. 85 

Org. One suit, just queene, my last ; vouch- 
safe your clemency 
That by no common hand I be divided 
From this my humble frailty. 

Cal. To their wisdomes 

Who are to be spectators of thine end 
I make the reference : those that are dead 90 

Are dead ; had they not now dyM, of necessity 
They must have payd the debt they ow'd to 

nature 
One time or other. — Use dispatch, my lords ; 
Wee'll suddenly prepare our coronation. 

Exeunt Calanthay Philema, Christalla, 



26o tir^r 315roten l^eart [act v. 

Arm. 'Tis strange these tragedies should never 
touch on 95 

Her female pitty. 

Bass. She has a masculine spirit : 

And wherefore should I pule, and, like a girle, 
Put finger in the eye ? let's be all toughnesse, 
Without distinction betwixt sex and sex. 

Near. Now, Orgilus, thy choyce. 

Org. To bleed to death. loo 

Arm. The executioner ? 

Org. My selfe, no surgeon j 

I am well skillM in letting blood. Bind fast 
This arme, that so the pipes may from their con- 
duits 
Convey a full streame. Here's a skilfull instru- 
ment : 
Onely I am a beggar to some charity 105 

To speed me in this execution 
By lending th'other pricke to th'tother arme, 
When this is bubling life out. 

Bass. I am for 'ee. 

It most concernes my art, my care, my credit ; 
Quicke, fillet both his armes. 

Org. Gramercy, friendship ! no 

Such curtesies are reall which flow cheerefully 
Without an expectation of requitall. 
Reach me a staffe in this hand. If a pronenesse 

WQ hh. Q, this, 112 expectation. Q, expection. 



Scene U.] ^j^t llBrOfeen fl^tntt 261 

Or custome in my nature from my cradle 
Had beene inclined to fierce and eager blood- 
shed, 115 
A coward guilt, hid in a coward quaking. 
Would have betray'd [my] fame to ignoble flight 
And vagabond pursuit of dreadfull safety : 
But looke upon my steddinesse, and scorne not 
The sicknesse of my fortune, which since Bas- 

sanes lao 

Was husband to Penthea had laine bed-rid : 
We trifle time in words : thus I shew cunning 
In opening of a veine too full, too lively. 
j^rm. Desperate courage ! 
Org. Honourable infamy ! 

Hemophil. I tremble at the sight. 
Groneas. Would I were loose ! 125 

Bass. It sparkles like a lusty wine new 
broacht ; 
The vessell must be sound from which it is- 
sues. 
Graspe hard this other sticke: I'le be as nimble — 
But prethe, looke not pale — have at *ee ! stretch 

out 
Thine arme with vigor and unshooke vertue. 130 

\Opens the vein.'\ 

117 betray' d my fame. Q omits my. G-D, betray'd me. 
124 Honourable infamy. So Q. G-D gives this speech to Near- 
chus. 

130 unshooke. G-D, unshak[en]. 



262 ®^e Broken J^eart [Actv. 

Good ! O, I envy not a rivall fitted 
To conquer in extremities ; this pastime 
Appeares majesticall : some high tun'd poem 
Hereafter shall deliver to posterity > 

The writers glory and his subjects triumph. 135 
How is't man ? droope not yet. 

Org. I feele no palsies: 

On a paire royall doe I wait in death ; 
My soveraigne, as his liegeman; on my mistresse, 
As a devoted servant; and on Ithocles, 
As if no brave, yet no unworthy enemy : 140 

Nor did I use an engine to intrap 
His life, out of a slavish feare to combate 
Youth, strength, or cunning, but for that I durst 

not 
Ingage the goodnesse of a cause on fortune, 
By which his name might have out-fac'd my 

vengeance. 145 

Oh, Tecnicus, inspir'd with Phoebus fire ! 
I call to mind thy augury, 'twas perfect ; 
Revenge proves its owne executioner. 
When feeble man is bending to his mother, 
The dust 'a was first fram'd on, thus he totters. 150 

Bass. Life's fountaine is dry'd up. 

Org, So falls the standards 

Of my prerogative in being a creature ! 
A mist hangs o're mine eyes ; the sun's bright 
splendor 



Scene IL] ^\\t llBrOfeeit ^mt 263 

Is clouded in an everlasting shadow : 

Welcome thou yce that sit'st about my heart, 155 

No heat can ever thaw thee. ^y^^- 

Near. Speech hath left him. 

Bass. A' has shooke hands with time: his 
funerall urne 
Shall be my charge : remove the bloodlesse bodie. 
The coronation must require attendance; 
That past, my few dayes can be but one mourn- 
ing. Exeunt. 160 

[SCENA TERTIA. A temple?^ 

An altar covered with white ; two lights of virgin 
wax. Musicke of recorders ; during which enter 
foure bearing Ithocles on a hea [r] se or in a chair ey 
in a rich robe, and a crowne on his head ; place him 
on one side of the altar. After him enter Calantha 
in a white robe and crown* d ; Euphranea, Phi- 
lemay Christalla in white ; Nearchusy Armostesy 
Crotolony ProphiluSy Amelusy Bassanesy Hemophily 
and Groneas. Calantha goes and kneeles before 
the altar y the rest stand off, the women kneeling 
behind. Cease recorders during her devotions. . 
iS^/] e musicke. Calantha and the rest rise, do* 
ing obeysance to the altar. 

Calantha. Our orisons are heard ; the gods are 
mercifull. 
Now tell me, you whose loyalties payes tribute 



264 tEPlje Broken l^earc iactv. 

To us your lawfull soveraigne, how unskilfull 

Your duties or obedience is to render 

Subjection to the scepter of a virgin, 5 

Who have beene ever fortunate in princes 

Of masculine and stirring composition. 

A woman has enough to governe wisely 

Her owne demeanours, passions, and divisions. 

A nation warlike and inur'd to practice 10 

Of policy and labour cannot brooke 

A feminate authority: we therefore 

Command your counsaile, how you may advise 

us 
In choosing of a husband whose abilities 
Can better guide this kingdome. 

Nearchus, Roy all lady, 15 

Your law is in your will. 

Armostes. We have scene tokens 

Of constancy too lately to mistrust it. 

Crotolon. Yet if your highnesse settle on a 
choice 
By your owne judgement both allow'd and likM 

of, 
Sparta may grow in power, and proceed 20 

To an increasing height. 

CaL Hold you the same minde ? 

Bass. Alas, great mistris, reason is so clouded 
With the thicke darkenesse of my infinite woes 

23 infinite. Q, infinites. 



Scene III.] ^1)0 HBrobetx J^eatt 265 

That I forecast nor dangers, hopes, or safety. 

Give me some corner of the world to weare out 25 

The remnant of the minutes I must number, 

Where 1 may heare no sounds but sad com- 
plaints 

Of virgins who have lost contracted partners; 

Of husbands howling that their wives were rav- 
isht 

By some untimely fate; of friends divided 30 

By churlish opposition ; or of fathers 

Weeping upon their childrens slaughtered car- 
casses ; 

Or daughters groaning ore their fathers hearses; 

And I can dwell there, and with these keepe 
consort 

As musicall as theirs. What can you looke for 35 

From an old, foolish, peevish, doting man 

But crasinesse of age ? 
Cal. Cozen of Argos. 
Near, Madam. 

Cal. Were I presently 

To choose you for my lord, He open freely 

What articles I would propose to treat on 40 

Before our marriage. 

Near. Name them, vertuous lady. 

Cal. I would presume you would retaine the 
royalty 

Of Sparta in her owne bounds ; then in Argos 



266 Wi)t llBroken l^eart [actv. 

Armostes might be viceroy; in Messene 

Might Crotolon beare sway; and Bassanes — 45 

Bass. I, queene ! alas, what I ? 

Cal. Be Sparta's marshall: 

The multitudes of high imployments could not 
But set a peace to private griefes. These gen- 
tlemen, 
Groneas and Hemophil, with worthy pensions 
Should wait upon your person in your chamber. 50 
I would bestow Christalla on Amelus, 
Shee'U prove a constant wife ; and Philema 
Should into Vesta's temple. 

Bass. This is a testament ! 

It sounds not like conditions on a marriage. 

Near. All this should be perform'd. 

Cal. Lastly, for Prophilus, 55 

He should be, cozen, solemnly invested 
In all those honors, titles, and preferments 
Which his deare friend and my neglected hus- 
band 
Too short a time enjoy'd. 

Prophilus. I am unworthy 

To live in your remembrance. 

Euphranea. Excellent lady ! 60 

Near. Madam, what meanes that word, " ne- 
glected husband"? 

Cal. Forgive me : now I turne to thee, thou 
shadow 



Scene III.] ^j^t WtOl^tXt J^eatt 267 

Of my contracted lord ! Beare witnesse all, 
I put my mother['s] wedding ring upon 
His finger; 'twas my fathers last bequest. 65 

Thus I new marry him whose wife I am j 
Death shall not separate us. O my lords, 
I but deceived your eyes with anticke gesture. 
When one newes straight came hudling on an- 
other 
Of death, and death, and death ; still I danc'd 

forward ; 70 

But it strooke home, and here, and in an in- 
stant. 
Be such meere women, who with shreeks and 

out-cries 
Can vow a present end to all their sorrowes, 
Yet live to vow new pleasures, and out-live 

them : 
They are the silent griefes which cut the hart- 
strings ; 75 
Let me dye smiling. 

Near, 'Tis a truth too ominous. 

Cal. One kisse on these cold lips, my last ! 
Cracke, cracke ! 
Argos now's Sparta's king. Command the voyces 
Which wait at th' altar now to sing the song 
I fitted for my end. 

Near, Sirs, the song ! 80 

74 'V01V. G-D substitutes court. 



268 ^i\t »ofeen l&eart iactv. 

^ Song 

All. Glories i pleasures y pomps ^ delightSy and ease. 
Can but please 
[7"^'] outward senses, when the mind 
Is Jiot untroubled, or by peace refiti^ d. 

1 Crownes may flourish and decay ^ g- 
Beauties shine, but fade away. 

2 Youth may revell, yet it must 
Lye downe in a bed of dust. 

3 Earthly honors flow and wast. 

Time alone doth change and last. ' 90 

All. Sorrowes mingled with contents prepare 
Rest for care ; 
Love onely reignes in death : though art 
Can find no comfort for a broken heart. 

\_Calantha dies.'\ 

Arm. Looke to the queene. 

Bass. Her heart is broke indeed. 95 

O royall maid, would thou hadst mist this 

part ! 
Yet 'twas a brave one: I must weepe to see 
Her smile in death. 

Arm. Wise Tecnicus ! thus said he : 

When youth is ripe., and age from time doth party 
The livelesse trunke shall wed the broken heart. 100 

'Tis here fulfill'd. | 

83 Th" . Q is defective in printing here. } 

84 h not. G-D, Is [or]. \ 



Scene iii.j tIPlje llBrofeen J^eart 269 

Near. I am your king. 

Omnes, Long live 

Nearchus, King of Sparta ! 

Near. Her last will 

Shall never be digrest from : wait in order 
Upon these faithfull lovers as becomes us. 

The counsels of the gods are never knowne, 105 

Till men can call th' effects of them their 
owne. 



FINIS. 



THE EPILOGUE, 

IVhere noble judgements and cleare eyes are fix* d 
To grace endevour^ there sits truth not mix*d 
With ignorance ; those censures may command 
Beleefe which talke not till they understand. 
Let some say^ " This was flat" ; so7ne., " Here the 

sceane 5 

Fell from its height *' ; Another that " the meane 
Was ill observ'd in such a growing passion 
As it transcended either state or fashion": 
Some few may cry^ " 'Twas pretty well," or so^ 
"But, — " and there shrugge in silence: yet we 

know 10 

Our writers ayme was in the whole addrest 
Well to deserve of all^ but please the best ; 
Which granted^ by th' allowance of this straine 
THE BROKEN HEART may be piec't up 

againe. 



FINIS 



jl^otcjs to Clje istofeen 1$tatt 

For the meaning of single ivorJs see the Glossary. 

William, Lord Craven. Bom in 1606, Craven entered as 
a commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1623, but before he was 
twenty he was enlisted in the service of the Prince of Orange. He 
gained some military distinction under Maurice and his successor 
Frederick Henry, and on returning to England was knighted by 
Charles I, 4 March, 1627. Eight days later he was created Baron 
Craven of Hampsted Marshall, and not long afterward was named 
a member of the permanent council of war. In 1631 he was one 
of the commanders of the English forces sent to the aid of Gusta- 
vus Adolphus. In 1632 he was wounded at the siege of Kreuznach, 
where he distinguished himself by his valor. Returning to England, 
he was placed. May 12th, 1633, '^^ ^^^ council of Wales, and on 
the 31st of August his university created him Master of Arts. It 
would appear that Ford's dedication to him of The Broken Heart in 
this same year was part of a general welcome accorded to a roman- 
tic young hero. There is a tradition that Lord Craven was married 
to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter to James I; it is certain that 
he displayed a generous and life-long attachment to her cause. 

For further details, see the Dictionary of National Biography. 

138, 16. a truth. In the quarto ^, and the initial /, are capital- 
ized and all the letters are printed in the blackest and most emphatic 
type. Similar assurance is given on the title page oi Per kin Warbecky 
which is called "a strange truth"; and on the title page of the 
JVitch of Edmonton — "a known true story. " 

I47> 43-4- He . . . fixt. Cf. The Sun's Darling, v, i : 

** O, may you all, like stars, while swift time moves, 
Stand fix'd in firmaments of blest content." 

148, 66. provinciall garland. ** The wreath (of laurel) 
which she had prepared; and which the ancients conferred on those 



272 jpotrs; 

who, like Ithocles, had added ^pro'vince to the empire." GifFord. 
Weber compared the passage in Hamlet^ iii, ii, where Pro'vincial 
means of Pro'vence ; the Oxford English Dictionary adopts this 
interpretation of the passage in The Broken Heart. 

149, 79-81. Whom heaven . . . madding. Cf. The 

Suns Darling, iv, i : 

*' Whom the creatures 
Of every age and quality post madding 
From land and sea to meet 
Shall wait upon thy nod, Fortune and Cupid." 

149, 89. These fit sleights. This slighting language suit- 
able to slight services. 

151, 125. I have not put my love to use. The lan- 
guage of money-lenders : I have not lent my love to any one, hop- 
ing returns. 

152, 132- In forma pauperis. In the character of a poor 
man. " Paupers, or such as will swear themselves not worth five 
pounds, are to have original writs and subpoenas gratis, and coun- 
sel and attorney assigned them without fee, and are excused from 
paying costs when plaintiff." W. C. Anderson's Dictionary of 
Laiv. 

154, 21-2. malice of present hopes. The misfortunes 

which my present hopes have met. 

159,116. Mewl — asburd I " A term of the schools, and 
is used when false conclusions are illogically deduced from the op- 
ponent's premises." Gifford. 

I59> "7- The metaphysicks are but speculations. 

Compare with this and the preceding statement about philosophy 
Bacon's arraignment of the "degenerate learning" of the school- 
men in the first book, of the Ad-vancement of Learning : " For the 
wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the con- 
templation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, 
and is limited thereby 5 but if it work upon itself, as the spider 
worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cob- 
webs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, 
but of no substance or profit." Bacon's fVorks, London, 1902, 
pp. 242-243. 



iliotes; 273 

163, I. I 'II have that window . . . dam'd up. The 

parallelism of the situations makes one suspect this to be an echo 
of " First, I will have this wicked lij;ht damned up," Volpone, ii, 
iii. 

163, 5-6. the deformed bear-whelpe . . • into the act. 

Cf. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, London, 1907, vol. I, p. 30: 
*' I must for that cause do my business myself, and was therefore 
enforced, as a Bear doth her whelps, to bring forth this confused 
lump, I had not time to lick it into form, as she doth her young 
ones. " This notion is of hoary antiquity : see Sir Thomas Browne's 
Pseudodoxia Epidemica, bk. iii, chap. 6. 

164, 26-7. the head Which they have branch'd. An 

allusion to the familiar notion that horns grow on the forehead of a 
man whose wife has been unfaithful to him. 

165, 45-6. the king . . . gray beard. This piece of 
news is curiously matched as a specimen of court gossip by a passage 
in a letter from the Rev. Jos. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, dated at 
Christ's College, Feb. 22, 1 627-8 : *' On Thursday was sennight, his 
grace's second heir was christened at Wallingford House. . . . His 
majesty came hither apparelled in a long soldier's coat, all covered 
with gold lace, and his hair all gaufred and frizzled, which he never 
used before." The whole passage on news, however, seems mod- 
eled on Volpone, ii, i. 

168, 103-5. This house, methinks, . . . Nearer the 

court. Apparently an echo of Women Beivare Women, iii, i : 

*' Methinks this house stands nothing to my mind j 
I 'd have some pleasant lodging i' the high street, sir; 
Or if 'twere near the court, sir, that were much better." 

177-8, 1 1 7-1 25. Brothers and sisters ... Is in re- 
quest. In Burton's Jw<2romy of Melancholy (part in, sect, iii, 
mem. 11), the character of the morbidly jealous man is very mi- 
nutely analyzed; " He will sometimes sigh, weep, sob for anger . . . 
swear and belie, slander any man, curse, threaten, brawl, scold, fight; 
and sometimes again flatter, and speak fair, ask forgiveness, kiss and 
coll, condemn his rashness and folly, vow, protest and swear he will 
never do so again; and then eftsoons, impatient as he is, rave, roar, 
and lay about him like a madman ... so he continues off and on, 



274 i^otes? 

as the toy takes him . . . accusing and suspecting not strangers only, 
but Brothers and Sisters, Fathers and Mothers, nearest and dearest 
friends." That this description so accurately applies to Bassanes is 
probably not accidental. The influence of Burton's treatise would 
sufficiently explain what GiflFord looked upon as unnatural inconsist- 
encies in the character of Bassanes. 

i8o, 21-4. What heaven . . . perfection? This senti- 
ment may profitably be compared with a passage in Ford's Honour 
Triumphant : "The self alone means, therefore, that were to be 
ordained for a provocation and incitement to livelihood of manhood 
was the quintessence, rarity, yea, rare quintessence of divine aston- 
ishment, Beauty," fVorksy vol. iii, p. 352. 

185, 125. Politicke French. It is difficult to understand 
where Orgilus acquired this tongue. 

196, 109. My treasons. For a subject to aspire to the hand 
of the heir to the throne might be construed as treasonable. 

198, 149-150, Franks . . . swine-security. An allu- 
sion "to the small enclosures [franks^ as distinguished from styes) 
in which boars were fattened." Giffiord. 

219, 21-2. grace my hopes . . . livery. Give me some 

badge to wear as a sign that I am enrolled as your servant. 

223, 102-4. Painted colts . . . lion. "Our old writers 
used colt . . . for a compound of rudeness and folly. ... It would 
seem that there is also an allusion to some allegorical representation 
of this kind in * the painted cloth.' " Gifford. It was a popular be- 
lief that lions were afraid of virgins, cocks, and the blood royal ; a 
herald's coat adorned with the king's insignia might be presumed 
to have the same awe-inspiring power. 

225, 120-1. The hurts are yet but mortall . . . 

deadly. Giffiard thinks that the press here confused but and not ; 
otherwise, he says, it is not easy to discover how the author distin- 
guished mortal from deadly, " unless, indeed, he adopted the vulgar 
phraseology of his native place, and used * mortal ' in the sense of 
very great, extreme, &c." 

227, 14-15. hony-combe of honesty. The garland 

of gOOd-Tvill. ''The Honeycomb of Honesty, like the ' Gar- 
land of Good Will,' was probably one of the popular miscellanies 
of the day." Giffiard. The date of the publication of the Garland 



^otta 275 

of Good Will is given by Weber as 1 6 3 1 . Weber also notes another 
allusion to it in Rowley's Match at Midnight^ which was printed 
in 1633. It was reprinted by the Percy Society, from the edition of 
1678, in vol. 30, 1851. 

235, 162-5. there is a mastery . . . food. There is a 
contemporary ballad in the Shirburn collection ** Of a maide now 
dwelling at the towne of meurs in dutchland^ that hath not taken any 
foode this 16 yeares, and is not yet neither hungry nor thirsty ; the 
which maide hath lately beene presented to the lady elizabethj 
the king's daughter of england.^^ This ** maide" subsisted in the 
manner proposed by Bassanes — on perfumes. 

" My pure unspotted mind prevaild 
according to my will, 
And so my life preserved is 

by smelling flow-ers still." 
Shirburn Ballads. Oxford, 1 907, pp. 55-56. 

246. the other with an engine. Some simple mechani- 
cal contrivance for holding fast the occupant of the chair. The 
same device is introduced in a play by Ford's friend Barnabe Barnes, 
The DcviPs Charter (1607), i, 5. See G. D. vol. i, p. 302 for 
other references. 

257, 55- Too sure to be convinc'd. GifFord observes that 
** convince is used here in the primitive sense of conquered^ o'ver- 
thro'TJUn^ 

268, 81-4. Glories . . . peace refin'd. Gifford says **I 

can only reduce it to some tolerable meaning by reading * or ' be- . 
fore * untroubled ' instead of * not. ' But if one properly emphasizes 
" oufward^"" the sense of the quarto is sufficiently clear, in spite of 
the slight obscurity of the double negative : glories . . . can please 
only the outivard senses when the mind is troubled or not refined by 
peace. 



The place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated. 

I. TEXTS 

A. COLLECTIVE EDITIONS 

181I. 8vo. The Dramatic Works of John Ford. With an 
introduction and explanatory notes by Henry Weber. Edinburgh. 
2 vols. 

1827. 8vo. The Dramatic Works of John Ford. With 
notes critical and explanatory by W. Gifford, Esq. To which are 
added Fame's Memorial, and Verses to the Memory of Ben Jonson. 
2 vols. [Contains the violent exposure of Weber, which was omit- 
ted by Dyce in 1869.] 

1839. ^^°' '^"^ Dramatic Works of MassiNGER and Ford. 
With an introduction by Hartley Coleridge. Reissued 1840, 1848, 
1 85 1, etc. 

1869. 8vo. The Works of John Ford. With notes critical 
and explanatory by William Gifford, Esq. A new edition, care- 
fully revised, with additions to the text and to the notes by the 
Rev. Alexander Dyce. 3 vols. 

1895. 8vo. The Works of John Ford. Edited by William 
Gifford with additions by Rev. Alexander Dyce. Now reissued 
with further additions [by A. H. Bullen]. 

1908. John Fordes Dram atischeWerke. In Neudruck her- 
ausgegeben von W. Bang. Erster Band. Mit einem einleitenden 
Essay : Forde's Contribution to the Decadence of the Drama von 
S. P. Sherman und einem Neudruck von Dekkers Penny-Wise, 
Pound-Foolish. Louvain, Leipzig, London. [Contains The Lo-ver^s 
Melancholy and Lo-ve^s Sacrifice, reproducing the spelling of the 
original quartos. Issued as Band xxiii of Materialien %ur Kunde des 
alteren Englischen Dramas. '\ 



278 llBibliograpt)^ 

B. ORIGINAL EDITIONS 

1606. 4to. Fame's Memoriall, or the Earle of Devon- 
shire Deceased. With his honourable life, peacefull end and sol- 
emne Funerall. [British Museum.] 

1606. 4to. Honor Triumphant : or the Peeres Challenge, 
BY Armes defensible at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers. . . . 
Also, The Monarches Meeting : or the King of Denmarkes 
Welcome into England. Tam Mercurio quam Marti. 

1620. i2mo. A Line of Life. Pointing out the Immor- 
talitie of a Vertuous Name. W. S. for N. Butter. 

1629. 4to. The Lovers Melancholy. Acted at the Private 
House in the Blacke Friers, and publikely at the Globe by the 
Kings Maiesties Seruants. , . . Printed for H. Seile, and are to 
be sold at the Tygershead in Saint Pauls Church-yard. [British 
Museum.] 

1633. 4to. The Broken Heart. A Tragedy. Acted by the 
King's Majesties Seruants at the Priuate House in the Black- 
Friers. Fide Honor. Printed by I. B. for Hugh Beeston, and are 
to be sold at his Shop, neere the Castle in Corne-hill. [Boston Pub- 
lic Library, British Museum.] 

1633. 4to. LouES Sacrifice. A Tragedie Receiued Generally 
Well. Acted by the Queenes Majesties Seruants at the Phoenix in 
Drury-lane. . . . Printed by I. B. for Hugh Beeston, dwelling 
next the Castle in Cornhill. [British Museum.] 

1633. 4to. 'Tis Pitty Shee's a Whore. Acted by the 
Queenes Maiesties Seruants, at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane. . . . 
Printed by Nicholas Okes for Richard Collins, and are to be sold 
at his shop in Pauls Church-yard, at the signe of the three Kings. 
[Boston Public Library, Library of the University of Illinois, British 
Museum.] 

1634. 4to. The Chronicle Historie of Perkin Warbeck. 
A Strange Truth. Acted (some-times) by the Queenes Maiesties 
Servants at the Phoenix in Drurie Lane. Fide Honor. . , . Printed 
by T. P. for Hugh Beeston, and are to be sold at his shop, neere 
the Castle in Cornehill. [Boston Public Library, British Museum.] 

1638. 4to. The Fancies, Chast and Noble. Presented by 
the gueenes Maiesties Servants, at the Phoenix in Drury-lane. 



llBibliograpt)^ 279 

Fide Honor. . . . Printed by E. P. for Henry Seile, and are to 
be sold at his shop, at theTygers Head in Fleet Street, ovcr-against 
Saint Dunstans Church. [Boston Public Library, British Museum.] 

1639. 4to. The Ladies Triall. Acted by both their Majes- 
ties Servants at the private house in Drury Lane. Fide Honor. . . . 
Printed by E. G. for Henry Shephard, and are to be sold at his 
shop in Chancery-lane at the signe of the Bible, between Sarjants 
Inne and Fleet-street neere the Kings-head Taverne. [Harvard 
University Library, British Museum.] 

1653. 4to. The Queen: or The Excellency of Her Sex. 
An Excellent old Play, Found out by a Person of Honour, and 
given to the Publisher, Alexander Goughe. . . . Printed by T. N. 
for Thomas Heath, in Russel Street neer the Piazza of Covent- 
Garden. [Boston Public Library, British Museum.] 

1656. 4to. The Sun's Darling. A Moral Masque : as it hath 
been often presented at Whitehall, by their Majesties Servants ; and 
after at the Cock-pit in Drury Lane, with great Applause. Written 

( John Foard ^ 
by < and > Gent. . . . Printed by J, Bell for Andrew 

( Tho. Decker J Penneycuicke. [British Museum.] 

1657. 4to. The Sun's-Darling : A Moral Masque: As it hath 
been often presented by their Majesties Servants 5 at the Cock-pit 
in Drury Lane, with great Applause. Written 

C John Foard j 
by < and >- Gent. . . . Printed by J. Bell, for Andrew 

( Tho, Decker ) Penneycuicke. [British Museum.] 

1658. 4to. The Witch OF Edmonton. A known true Story, 
Composed into A Tragi-Comedy by divers well-esteemed Poets, 
William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, &c. Acted by the 
Princes Servants, often at the Cock- Pit in Drury-Lane, once at 
Court, with Singular Applause. Never printed till now. . . . Printed 
by J. Cottrel, for Edward Blackmore, at the Angel in Paul's Church- 
yard. 



28o Bibliograpl)^ 

C. SELECTIONS 

This list includes reprints issued separately and tuith the works of 
other authors^ translations^ and extracts. 

1714. i2mo. The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck. 

1744. izmo. 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. A Select Collection 
of Old Plays, vol. 5. 

1780. 8vo. 'Tis Pity She's A Whore. A Select Collection of 
Old Plays, vol. 8. 

1808. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Lived 
About the Time of Shakspeare. [A new edition in two vol- 
umes with additional specimens was published in 1835. Contains 
excerpts from The Lever's Melancholy, The Lady's Trial, Lo've's 
Sacrifice, Perkin JVarbeck, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Broken 
Heart — the last followed by the famous ecstatic note, '*The ex- 
pression of this transcendent scene almost bears me in imagination to 
Calvary and the Cross."] 

1819. The Lover's Melancholy, iv, iii. Campbell's Speci- 
mens of the British Poets, vol. in, pp. 233—240. 

1 81 9. Fame's Memorial. Edited by H. Haslewood. Kent: 
Press of Lee-Priory. 

1830. The Broken Heart. The Old English Drama, vol. 2. 

1831. The Lover's Melancholy, The Broken Heart, Per- 
kin Warbeck. New York : Harper's Family Library, Dramatic 
Series, no. 4, vol. i. 

1843. Honour Triumphant, and a Line of Life. Shake- 
speare Society. 

1848. Das Gebrochene Herz. Trauerspiel in fiinf Akten 
. . . nach dem Versmasse des Originals iibersetzt von M. Wiener. 
Mit einem Vorworte von L. Tieck. Berlin. Also with the title-page : 
fohn Ford' s dramatise he Werke, Erster Band. 

1865. Le Cchur Brise. Contemporains de Shakespeare. John 
Webster et John Ford, traduits par Ernest Lafond. Paris. 

1870. The Lady's Trial. The Works of the British Drama- 
tists, edited by J. S. Keltic. Another edition in 1891. Edinburgh. 

1888. The Lover's Melancholy, 'Tis Pity She 's a Whore, 
The Broken Heart, Love 's Sacrifice, Perkin Warbeck. Edited 



Kbliograp^^ 281 

with an introduction and notes by Havelock Ellis. The Best Plays 
of the Old Dramatists (^Mermaid Series'). 

1890. Perkin Warbeck. Famous Elizabethan Plays. Edited 
by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. [Contains a brief notice of Ford.] 

1895. The Broken Heart. Edited with notes and introduction 
by Clinton Scollard. New York. 

1895- Annabella [' Tis Pity She 'i A Whore.'\ Drame en cinq 
actes . . . Traduit et adapte par M. Maeterlinck. Paris. 

1896. Perkin Warbeck. Edited by J. P. Pickburn and J. Le 
Gay Brereton. 

1905. Specimens of the Elizabethan Drama. By W. H. 
Williams. Oxford. [Contains short excerpts from The Lover's 
Melancholy, The Broken Heart, Perkin fVarbeck, The Lady'' s Trial ; 
see pp. 397-416.] 

1906. The Broken Heart. A Play written by John Ford. 
Edited with a Preface, Notes and Glossary by Oliphant Smeaton. 

1907. The Queen : or The Excellency of Her Sex. Nach 
der Quarto 1653 in Neudruck herausgegeben von W. Bang. Ma~ 
terialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas, xiii. Louvain, 
Leipzig, London. 

191 1. The Broken Heart. The Chief Elizabethan Drama- 
tists, edited from the original quartos and folios with notes, biog- 
raphies, and bibliographies, by W. A. Neilson. Boston. 

II. WORKS BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
CRITICAL 

1687. The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets, 
William Winstanley [contains at page 114 a list of Ford's plays, 
with the remark that he was "very beneficial to the Red- Bull and 
Fortune Play-houses."] 

1691. An Account of The English Dramatick Poets, 
Gerard Langbaine. Pp. 219-222. Oxford. 

1811. 8vo. A Letter TO J. P. Kemble, Esq., Involving 
Strictures on a Recent Edition of John Ford's Dramatic 
Works. Printed at Cambridge for Murray, London. 

181 1. 8vo. A Letter to William Gifford, Esq., on the 



282 BibUograpl^^ 

Late Edition of Ford's Plays, Chiefly as Relating to Ben 
JoNsoN. By Octavius Gilchrist, Esq. 

1811. Ford's Dramatic Works [Weber's edition], S^arterly 
Re'vieiv, Dec, vol. vi ; 462-487. 

1812. Weber's Edition of Ford's Dramatic Works, 
Monthly RevieiVf March, 240-254, and April, 372-386, vol. 

LXVII. 

1 812. Gilchrist's Letter to Gifford j and A Letter to 
Kemble, Monthly Revieiv, April, vol. lxvii, 386-387. 

1812. 8vo. A Letter to R, Heber, Es^., Containing 
Some Observations on the Merits of Mr. Weber's Late 
Edition of Ford's Dramatic Works. [By J. Mitford.] 

1 82 1. The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare 
with the Corrections and Illustrations by Edmond Ma- 
lone, vol. I, pp. 402-435. 

1827. Ford's Dramatic Works, Monthly Review y August, 
vol. V, 497-507- 

1862. Studien iJBER DAS Englische Theater, Morftz Rapp, 
pp. 94-98. Tubingen. 

1871. John Ford, A. C. Swinburne, Fortnightly Review ^ July* 
vol. X, pp. 42-63. [Reprinted in Essays and Studies, 1875.] 

1875. A History of English Dramatic Literature, A. 
W. Ward. 2 vols., 11, pp. 295-309. 

1879. John Ford, A. W. Ward, Encyclopedia Britannica. 

1880* John Ford bin Nachahmer Shakespeare's, Max WolfF. 
Heidelberg. 

1 88 1. CONTEMPORAINS ET SUCCESSEURS DE ShAKESPEARE, 

A. Mezieres, pp. 330-339. Paris, 3rd edition. [First edition, 
1863.] 

1887. A History of Elizabethan Literature, George 
Saintsbury. [Pp. 401-409 in edition of 1906.] 

1888. Metrische Untersuchungen zu John Ford, Eduard 
Hannemann. Halle. 

1889. John Ford, A. H. Bullen, Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy. 

1891. The Old English Dramatists, J. R. Lowell. Boston. 
1 89 1. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 
F. G. Fleay. 2 vols., i, pp. 230-235. 



llBibltograjp^^ 283 

l895« ^•^^ Verhaltnis von Fords Perkin Warbeck zu Ba- 
cons Henry vii, Victor Gehler. Halle. 

1897. Quellen-Studien zv Den Dramen George Chap- 
man's, Philip Massinger's und John Ford's, Emil Koeppel. 
Strassburg. 

1903. A History of English Poetry, W. J. Courthope, 
vol. IV, pp. 369-385. 

1906. Ford's Debt to his Predecessors and Contempora- 
ries; AND his Contributions to the Decadence of the Drama, 
S. P. Sherman. [An ill-digested dissertation which reposes in manu- 
script in the Harvard University Library. Some of the conclusions 
were used in the introduction to W. Bang's edition of Ford ; see 
above. A portion dealing with the source of The Broken Heart was 
published in the Publ. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. ; see below. Other 
suggestions regarding sources were mentioned by W. A. Neilson 
in the Cambridge History of English Literature ; see below. F. F. 
Pierce put the author under obligation by utilizing some collections 
relating to the collaboration of Ford and Dekker in two articles 
published in Ang/ia ; see below.] 

1906. John Forde und Parthenios Von Nikaia, W. Bang 
und H. de Vocht. Englische Studien, xxxvi, 392-393. 

1908. A New Play by John Ford [The ^wf^n, edited by W. 
Bang], S. P. Sherman, Modern Language Notes, xxviii, no. 8, 
pp. 245-249. 

1908. Elizabethan Drama, F. E. Schelling. 2 vols., 11, pp. 
327-336 and />aii/»z. Boston. 

1908. Tragedy, A. H. Thorndike, pp. 226-229 and passim. 

1909. Stella and The Broken Heart, S. P. Sherman, 
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 
XVII, no. 2, pp. 274-285. 

191 0. Ford and Shirley, W. A. Neilson, Cambridge History 
of English Literature, vol. vi, ch. viii. [See also Index and Biblio- 
graphy.] New York and Cambridge, England. 

1912. The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford, F. F. 
Pierce, Anglia, xxxvi, pp. 141-168 and 289-312. 



(BlojSisart 



abiliment, ability. B. H. v. 

ii, 49. 
affied, betrothed. T. P. in, 

V, 9- 
anticke, clown. B. H. n, i, 

61. 
Areopagite, a member of the 

court of Areopagus at Athens. 

B. H. I, i, 8. 
art, learning of the schools. T. 

P. I, i, 6. 
availeable, serviceable, im- 
portant. B. H. I, ii, 44; II, 

ii, 25. 

board, jest. T. P. n, iv, 28. 

bobbe, cheat, r. p. Ill, i, 4. 
busse, kiss. T. p. in, v, 37. 

caroches, coaches. B. H. 11, 

i, 129. 
cast-suite, a person who wears 

cast-off garments. T. P. i, ii, 

II. 
codpiece-poynt, a lace for 

fastening a portion of the male 

attire. T. P. in, i, 15. 
Collops, small pieces. B. H. 

II, i, 125. 
condition, character. T. P. 

II, ii, 94. 
confusion, perdition. T. P. 

II, iii, 54. 



cot-queane, shrew, hussy. T. 

P. I, ii, 13. 
couze, cousin; here means 

nephew. T. P. in, v, 32. 
cozen, used for various degrees 

of relationship; here, for niece. 

T. P. II, iii, 39. 
cull, embrace. B. H. 11, i, 26. 
cunning, skill. T. P. 11, i, 75. 
cunny-berry, rabbit-burrow. 

T. P. IV, iii, 165. 

dry beating, a sound thrash- 
ing. T. P. II, vi, 116. 

eare-wrig, flatterer, parasite. 
B. H. II, i, 13. 

fiddle faddle, trifle. B. H. i, 

iii, no. 
firks, caprices. B. H. in, ii, 

floates, flood or high tide. T. 
P. I, i, 65. 

fond, foolish, silly. T. P. i, 
i, 9. 

foyle, foil, dull background. T. 
P. n, ii, 30. 

franks, encloses as for fatten- 
ing. B. H. Ill, ii, 198. 

gaily maufrey, jumbled mess. 
T. P. IV, iii, 13. 



286 



^losf6?ar^ 



geere, business, affair. T. P. 

I, ii, 9. 
goverment, conduct. T. P. 

I, i, 51. 
grammates, rudiments. B. 

H. I, iii, 125. 

hugger mugger, secretly. 
T. P.y III, i, 19. 

impostumes, abscesses. B. H. 

II, iii, 135. 

index, the hand with pointing 
forefinger. B. H. v, i, 36. 

jayes, trumpery persons. B. H. 

11, i, 136. 
jealous, suspicious. B. H. iii, 

i, 3- 

kennel, gutter. T. P. 11, vi, 
83- 

lik't, pleased. T. P. 11, vi, 107. 
luxury, lust, sensual indul- 
gence. T. P. IV, iii, 9. 

magnifico, magnate. T. P.i, 

ii, 141. 
May-game, laughing-stock. 

T. P. I, iv, 51. 
megrims, whims resulting 

from nervous headache. B.H. 

in, ii, 155. 
mew'd, confined as in a cage 

for birds. T. P. v, i, I4. 
me^ved, shed, moult. B. H. 

II, i, 45. 



moil, mule. B. H. iv, ii, 17. 
motions, puppet-shows. T. P. 
ii,iv, 53. 

nicenesse, standing on cere- 
mony. B. H. I, iii, 52, 

nuntio, papal ambassador. T. 
P. II, iii, 31. 

owing, owning. T.P. i, ii, 59. 

parmasent, Parmesan cheese. 

T. P. I, iv, 67. 
partage, share. T. P. i, ii, 

161. 
pavin, a stately dance. T. P. 

I, ii, 137. 

peevish, trivial. T. p. I, i, 24. 
plurisie, repletion. T. P. iv, 

iii, 8. 
points, laces. B. H. iv, ii, 

119. 
progress, a journey of state. 

B. H. V, ii, 40. 
provinciall, ? of Provence j 

see note. B. H. i, ii, 66. 

quality, rank. T. p. I, ii, 

16. 
queane, low woman. T. P. 

IV, iii, 25. 

rellashing, tasting, enjoying. 

B. H. IV, i, 75. 
remark 't, marked out. T. P. 

II, V, 10. 

resolute, assured. B. H. v. 
i, 42. 



6losf0ar^ 



287 



rest, resolution. T. P. iii, 75. 

rubs, knobs j the reference is 
here to the horns that grow 
on the forehead of the de- 
ceived husband. B. H. 11, i, 
28. 

sadnesse, earnest. T. p. I, iii, 

84. 
schoole-points, academic 

questions. T. P. I, i, a. 
seeled, with eyelids sewed to- 
gether. B. H. 11, ii, 3. 
sense, physical sensation. B. 

H. IV, ii, 18. 
shrewd, shrewish. T. P. 11, 

ii, 119. 
single, single-minded. T. P. 

IV, i, 57- 
skonce, head. T. P. in, i, 3. 
springall, a youth. B. H. 11, 

i, 1 2 5 youthful, B. H. iii, 

ii, 144. 
states, dignitaries. T. P. v, 

ii. 21. 



tackling, weapon. T. P. i, ii, i. 
tent, probe. B. H. iv, iv, 42. 
thrum, weave. B. H. i, ii, 

134- 
turtle, dove. B. H. v, i, 145 

T. P. IV, iv, 29. 
tutellage, guardianship. T. P. 

i» i, 53- 
tympany, swelling. B. H. 11, 
i, 134. 

uds sa'me, God save me. 
T. P. I, IV, 60. 

un-raunged, ? unclassified. 
T, P. i,i, 45. 

unspleen'd, lacking a spleen 
and therefore of a naturally pa- 
cific disposition. T. P. i, ii, 62. 

wagtails, light women. B.H. 

II, i, 136. 
white-boy, favorite. T. P. 

I, iv, 86. 
winkes, shuts her eyes. T. P. 

III, ii, 23. 



EASTWARD HOE 

By JoNSON, Chapman and Marston 
and Jonson's 

THE ALCHEMIST 

Edited by Felix E. Schelling, Professor of English Litera- 
ture in the University of Pennsylvania. 



Illustration and Facsimiles 

A frontispiece showing stage scene from The Alchemist, 
and reduced facsimiles of the title pages of a 1605 
quarto of Eastw^ard Hoe and the 1 6 1 6 folio edition of 
The Alchemist. 

The Texts 

The text of Eastward Hoe is that of the first edition as 
exhibited in Q2, w^ith the variants of Qi and Q3 care- 
fully set forth in footnotes. 

The text of The Alchemist is that of the first collective 
edition of Jonson's works, the folio of 161 6, which 
received the author's careful revision. The variants of 
other folios and quartos are noted. 

The Editor's Work 

also includes a Life of Ben Jonson, 4 pages ; an Intro- 
duction, 23 pages ; Notes on Eastward Hoe, 20 pages ; 
Notes on The Alchemist, 25 pages ; Bibliography, 7 
pages ; Glossary, 10 pages. 



Gilt embossed cover, 
xxxii 4-408 pages. 60 cents. 



THE WHITE DEVIL 

AND 

THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 

By John Webster 

Edited by Martin W. Sampson, Professor of English in 
Indiana University. 



Illustration and Facsimiles 

Portrait of Richard Perkins, the actor ; and reduced fac- 
similes of the title-pages of the first quarto editions of 
The White Devil and of The Duchess of Malfy. 

The Texts 

The text of The White Devil is that of the first (1612) 
quarto, with variants noted. 

The text of The Duchess of Malfy is that of the British 
Museum copy of the first (1623) quarto, with variants 
noted. 
The Editor's Work 

also includes a Life of John Webster, 4 pages ; an 
Introduction, 34 pages ; Notes on The White Devil, 
2 2 pages ; Notes on The Duchess of Malfy, 1 7 pages ; 
Bibliography, 9 pages ; Glossary, 1 2 pages. 



Gilt embossed cover, 
xliv 4- 422 pages. 60 cents. 



THE GOOD-NATUR'D MAN 

AND 

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER 

By Oliver Goldsmith 

Edited by Austin Dobson, LL.D. (Edinburgh). 



Illustration and Facsimiles 

A frontispiece showing stage scene from She Stoops to 
Conquer ; and reduced facsimiles of the title-pages of the 
fifth octavo edition (1768) of The Good-Natur'd Man, 
and of the fifth octavo edition (1773) ^^ ^^^ Stoops to 
Conquer. 

The Texts 

The text of The Good-Natur'd Man is that of the fifth 
octavo collated with that of the first, second, and third 
octavo editions, with variants noted. The text of She 
Stoops to Conquer is that of the fifth edition — the last 
published during Goldsmith's life — with variants noted. 
Appended are the epilogues and song. 

The Editor's Work 

also includes a Life of Oliver Goldsmith, 4 pages ; an 
Introduction, 2 1 pages ; Notes, 2 1 pages ; Bibliography, 
7 pages ; Glossary, 2 pages. 



Gilt embossed cover, 
xl + 285 pages. 60 cents. 



SOCIETY 

AND 

CASTE 
By T. W. Robertson 

Edited by T. Edgar Pemberton, author of "The Life and 
Writings of T. W. Robertson," "John Hare, Come- 
dian," "The Kendalls," etc. 



Frontispiece 

Portrait of T. W. Robertson, after an etching by R. 
W. Macbeth. 

The Texts 

Society is printed from the English acting edition, which 
embodies the original manuscript now in the Shakespeare 
Memorial Library at Stratford-on-Avon. 
Caste is also from the English acting edition of French, 
after the original manuscript now owned by Sir Squire 
and Lady Bancroft. 

The Editor's Work 

also includes a Life of Robertson, 4 pages ; an Intro- 
duction, 27 pages; Notes, 18 pages; Bibliography, 2 
pages. 

Gilt embossed cover. 
xxxvi+ 300 pages. 60 cents. 



A BLOT IN THE SCUTCHEON, 
COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY, A SOUL'S 
TRAGEDY, and IN A BALCONY 
By Robert Browning 

Edited by Arlo Bates, Professor of English Literature in 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



Illustration and Facsimile 

A portrait of Browning in 1835, and reduced facsimile 
of the title-page of the first edition of A Blot in the 
* Scutcheon. 

The Texts 

are those of the latest edition, 1888-94, which had 
the personal supervision of Robert Browning, with va- 
riants noted. 

The Editor's Work 

also includes a Life of Robert Browning, 3 pages ; an 
Introduction, 28 pages ; Notes, 22 pages ; Bibliography, 
4 pages ; Glossary, 2 pages. 



Gilt embossed cover, 
xxxviii +305 pages. 60 cents. 



SELECT POEMS OF 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

Edited by Andrew J. George, Editor of "Select Poems 
of Wordsworth. ' ' 



Portraits 

Coleridge in 1795, from the original painting by Peter 
Vandyke ; and Wordsworth in 1 797, after the portrait 
by Hancock. 

The Text 

includes ninety-eight poems, chronologically arranged, 
and representing the great body of Coleridge's best 
work. The date and place of the first publication of 
each poem is given when possible. The text is that 
showing Coleridge's latest revision. Important variations 
in the text are duly considered in the notes. 

The Editor's Work 

includes an Introduction, 28 pages ; a Life of Coleridge, 
4 pages ; Notes, 1 1 2 pages ; Index to first lines, 4 pages. 



Gilt embossed cover. 
xlii + 410 pages. 60 cents. 

HU7 74 















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